RecSea S95 or FIX S95?

[TheDolphin]

Hi,

I’m looking at purchasing a housing for the Canon S95 and have narrowed it down to either the Seatool/RecSea S95 or FIX S95 (yet to be released).

According to a person at Reef Photo and Video (reefphoto.com), they’ve been told by their FIX distributor that the RecSea S95 vignettes in raw with the FIX UWL-04 wide-angle lens. They say this about the upcoming FIX S95: “This housing has eliminated almost 4mm of dead space from the front of the previous version port & adapter config (still used on Recsea s95) by building the 52mm thread into the port”.

Now I know a lucky few on this board do use the RecSea S95 and UWL-04 lens. Do you see vignetting in raw or jpg while in water?

I intend to shoot in raw + jpg most of the time.

 

[Nemrod]

The RAW file is slightly larger than the jpeg file and yes it vignettes in RAW as a result. You simply crop it down to the size of the jpeg. Mine does not do this with the Canon software, but Photoshop it does.

If it is true they have eliminated 4mm of dead space, a tall order since there is very little extra space there anyways, that would be good thing and would improve performance of various wet lenses.

I believe that Canon is purposely cropping in their jpeg and RAW in DP, to reduce lens aberrations, maybe, I dunno.

N

 

[dogdrjohn]

I doubt there is 2mm between the front of the port glass and bottom of the threads in side the 52mm ring. With my 165AD lens mounted on a 52mm to 67mm adaptor ring I could not mount the AD adaptor directly to the 67mm plated, but had to screw it to a 67mm ring to keep the lens from hitting the port glass. I don't know how far the FIX lens is from the port glass, but it appears that the Canon lens is VERY close to the inside of the port glass, so I suppose they might have been able to get 4mm closer. Maybe Nemrod can try to measure how far his FIX lens is from the port glass - hard to get a caliper in there with it all put together!

 

[girellator]

Do I well understand ?? There is already existing the recsea housing for the S 95 with a port which is not with a 52 mm thread , and there will be a Fix housing for the S 95 which will be with the 52 mm port ???
Am I right ??


Anyway I keep my S 90 and Fix housing

 

[Nemrod]

Do I well understand ?? There is already existing the recsea housing for the S 95 with a port which is not with a 52 mm thread , and there will be a Fix housing for the S 95 which will be with the 52 mm port ???
Am I right ??


Anyway I keep my S 90 and Fix housing

The port thread on the FIX90 and the SeaRec95 is a 44mm(?) male thread to which one attaches whichever accessory lens adapter they wish.

The FIX95 appears to have a non-removable 52mm female thread on the port. There is speculation that this may set the lens closer to the camera lens, less built in dead space, maybe, maybe not since there isn't much anyways.

N

 

[girellator]

It's absolutely what I did understood.
Anyway , I agree with you that there is not so much space left with our configuration between the back of the lense and the port ..
Wait and see !!

 

[dogdrjohn]

The only real possibility I see is shortening the length of the port, but I suspect the camera comes about as close as is safely possible to the port glass at full zoom, and these cameras apparently do not tolerate much in the way of interference with the movement of the lens when zooming. By the way, my Recsea/S95 had it's baptism today off Little Cayman. I was too tired from traveling from Portland OR to here on Saturday (actually left Friday night at 9:30PM) to get up early enough to get strobe and tray and INON LE-550Ws and everything all ready to get on the boat at 7:45AM this morning, so I just loaded the camera in the Recsea and off I went. Everything seemed to work fine but I started getting a low battery warning near the end of the FIRST dive. I thought I had the batteries all charged up last weekend. Put a newly charged battery in for the afternoon dive, but not as much photo worthy stuff on to that dive, so I don't know if that battery will work longer I have I have been a little spoiled by two trips to Dauin, Philippines in the last two years to get too excited about underwater photo ops in the Caribbean.
I do think I may have a little issue with the rear control wheel. I had it set to change exposure compensation (I think that is the default setting). When I got back in the boat after the third dive I saw that my exposure compensation was at something like -3, so I think I may inadvertently touch the control and turn the rear control wheel when I am trying to access the other buttons. I will have everything assembled correctly tomorrow, with freshly charged batteries in strobe and LE-550Ws and camera, and bring the UFL-165AD lens and see what I can find to take pictures of. Wish me luck. Saw a baby trunk fish today but only two pretty brief glimpses and no chance of taking a picture. Really cute little fellow about the size and shape of a pea, but black with white spots.

 

[Nemrod]

You will need to charge batteries no later than the evening before, not the week before. There are indications, as we have mentioned, that the S95 has a lower/lesser battery life than the S90, I easily shoot through two dives and most of a third with a freshly charged battery.

N

 

[RetroBlader]

The FIX95 appears to have a non-removable 52mm female thread on the port. There is speculation that this may set the lens closer to the camera lens, less built in dead space, maybe, maybe not since there isn't much anyways.

I remember reading a post by someone from REEF that most customers who buy the FIX S90 also buy the 52mm adaptor (presumably to use with the UWL-04).

I don't have any first-hand experience working with wet lenses (very new to scuba-diving and even newer to UW photography), but on land I do have 2 DSLRs (7D and XTi), 8 lenses and severeal filters/step-up rings. Bayonet mounting is MUCH MUCH easier/faster than thread mounting. I can't imagine underwater thread-mounting suddenly becomes easier than bayonet.

In that sense, is the 52mm mounting of UWL-04 inferior to, say, the 28AD mounting of INON's, but people put up with it simply because the UWL-04 can be used at 28mm with no vignetting (well a bit on RAW)?

 

[Nemrod]

I remember reading a post by someone from REEF that most customers who buy the FIX S90 also buy the 52mm adapter (presumably to use with the UWL-04).

I don't have any first-hand experience working with wet lenses (very new to scuba-diving and even newer to UW photography), but on land I do have 2 DSLRs (7D and XTi), 8 lenses and several filters/step-up rings. Bayonet mounting is MUCH MUCH easier/faster than thread mounting. I can't imagine underwater thread-mounting suddenly becomes easier than bayonet.

In that sense, is the 52mm mounting of UWL-04 inferior to, say, the 28AD mounting of INON's, but people put up with it simply because the UWL-04 can be used at 28mm with no vignetting (well a bit on RAW)?

You will not be wanting to remove and install threaded lenses underwater, IMO. I can do it and it is a PITA.

My FIX90, the lens I use mostly are my bayonet mounted Inon UFL165AD (fisheye lens) and my UCL165AD (macro, used rarely because macro bores the c--p out of me).

I think the suitability of the FIX95 for use with other brand/bayonet lenses is mostly unknown with an obvious deficit, a non removable port adapter (??).

Yes, the bayonet concept works much better underwater.

N