Canon wide angle lens/port

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Sully3

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New Jersey
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Hey everybody,

Just looking for some opinions on what you think is the best wide angle lens/port combo. Im looking to get one and cant decide which one i like best and was looking for reviews from people who use them.
thanks
Matt
 
Kinda depends on what camera and housing you have or intend to buy..
 
Then you have the fact that the 7D has a crop factor of 1,6x so youll need to consider that (a 22mm lens would be about equivalent to 35mm on a full-frame).
The 10-17mm tokina is a popular choice, and you could of course go even more extreme with the canon 8-15mm..

Personally Im more into normal and macro than wideangle, so I intend to use my 7D with a 17-40mm for a start and get a 100mm macro ASAP and look more into the wa route later..

A good start is http://ikelite.com/web_pages/slrport.html to find what theres actually ports for when it comes to the ikelite housing.
 
im more into macro too and have the canon 60 and 100mm macro (which i love) but i might be doing a whale shark trip in 2013 and want a wide angle for that. the tokina 10-17 is the one i've been looking at and also the sigma 24

---------- Post added November 22nd, 2012 at 07:08 PM ----------

isnt the tokina a fisheye?
 
I vote for the 10-17 and whatever port Ike recommends for that lens.
Bill
 
I would suggest that you consider the Tokina 10-17 fisheye like the above did. This is not a lens that one would really choose to get for above water shooting. But it has a number of very nice characteristics that make it excellent for underwater photography.

It has a very close focus distance, something like one inch. That means you do not have to have a diopter on it. It also means you can use a 4" dome with it which makes your set up fairly compact. If you want to do over/unders, you might want to go with a larger dome. The Tokina is a really nice lens. It is awfully wide with a 17 mm as your long part. It is great for landscapes, diver photos and even photos on the boat (surprisingly enough). On my last dive with it, I took a few boat photos with divers and was very surprised at how well it worked. On the down side, unless you are taking photos of very large fish that can be approached quite closely: nurse sharks, stingrays, turtles (yeah they are not fish but they are wild and underwater so they get included) and others, it is hard to get close enough to a fish to get a good photo of it.

A more versatile lens is the Sigma 17-70 macro. Again, like the Tokina, it has a mix of characteristics that lend it to underwater photography. It has to be used with at least a 6" dome or better an 8" dome. With the 17 end, it works as a landscape lens or for taking diver photos. Because of the pretty wide range of zoom, it works very well for fish like angel fish. It also has a close up ability but not true macro.

It really depends on your style of shooting and what you prefer to do. If you really like taking shots of fish with the ability to do landscape shots, you might prefer the Sigma. If you are into a dedicated wide angle lens for landscapes, diver photos, wreck photos, and on board boat photos, the Tokina is the way to go.
 
Pat that was really helpful thank you. Ill probably go with the tokina because across the board people say it is a pretty good lens. and ill be getting it for whale sharks for next summer so i figure the wider the better.
 
There is one very important thing to consider with the sigma 17-70mm lensES and that is that (atleast according to ikelites port charts) they do NOT all fit in the ikelite ports - the 17-70 2.8-4.5 DC Macro does fit but the 2.8-4.5 DC Macro HSM and 2.8-4.0 DC Macro OS HSM does NOT, so you need to take a bit care there.
I was looking into that kinda lense myself as it goes from fairly wide to quite a bit macro, but Ive been struggling to find the one that fits the Ikelite port system so I dont think Ill go for it and Ive also heard its a bit of a compromise with regards to image quality when you use it in the extreme ends.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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