D.K.S. 1 Posted September 24, 2016 I recently did multiple shark dives in Yap with my new d500 in a Nauticam housing.Being a previous full frame shooter I used my nikkor 16-35mm lens along with the Nauticam 8.5" dome and the 70mm ext. ring recommended in the Nauticam port chart.All of my images were soft-even some taken of a stationary moray eel on site.I tested the lens/port/ext. ring combo on land and the resulting images were sharp.I subsequently shot the sharks using a 20mm nikkor,and a 60mm nikkor ,and a 15mm sigma fisheye with good results.I discussed this phenomenon with a Nauticam rep.and his suggestion was to try adding another 20mm ext. ring to the combo.Anybody have any similar experiences/suggestions/solutions? D.K.S Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
blibecap 29 Posted September 24, 2016 Because the Nauticam dome is not a true hemispherical dome the answer is somewhat a guess but the back of the dome should be somewhere around 110-120 mm from the face of the cameras lens flange for that lens. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Aussiebyron 57 Posted September 25, 2016 Have you tried the AF fine tune feature of the D500? I noticed a few lenses that were out in my colection. Cheers Mark Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
diverdon 1 Posted September 25, 2016 How sharp is the camera with that lens on the surface? How long is the shutter open for these blured shots? Have you tried increasing the ISO to have the shutter open for a shorter time to see if this recuces the blur? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
D.K.S. 1 Posted September 28, 2016 Mark, I tried the af fine tune feature according to directions and got values ranging from -2 to -17 depending on which focal length I used(16-35),and how bright the ambient light was at the time.I took shots with af fine tune on at -8,and with the af fine tune turned off-when magnified on the computer,I really could not see a significant difference in sharpness.All this to say-Im really not sure the af fine tune feature is that accurate or usefull . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Aussiebyron 57 Posted September 29, 2016 D.K.S, I honestly think that it comes down to you putting one of the sharpest wide angle zooms for FX onto the DX D500 where it just a normal slow zoom and not wide angle lens at all. Shooting sharks on the D500 the Tokina 10-17mm is going to be your zoom or Tokina 11-16mm for rectangular wide angle. I would find that the 16-35mm on a DX simple just not wide enough (83° to 44° angle of view) to fit a shark in frame unless your shooting them from distance. I mainly use the Tokina 10-17mm and 10.5 Nikkor for my shark shots so I can fit them in the frame. Regards Mark Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JimSwims 31 Posted September 29, 2016 ......All of my images were soft-even some taken of a stationary moray eel on site.I tested the lens/port/ext. ring combo on land and the resulting images were sharp..... D.K.S Does the Nikkor 16-35mm require the use of a diopter behind a dome? It sounds like the lens isn't correctly focusing on the virtual image. Cheers, Jim. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
blibecap 29 Posted September 29, 2016 The lens has a Minimum Focus Distance 0.95 ft (0.29m) at a focal length of 16mm or 35mm so as long as your dome is larger than 6" in diameter you should be fine. You can read more here about dome placement. http://www.creativeillusionsphoto.com/virtual.htm Bill Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
