Question Macro and focus types

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Craine

Just some guy who likes being underwater
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Hey all. I have an a6400 with dual strobes and a Salted Line housing, and am looking at picking up a macro lens to complement my existing setup (either a Sigma 16mm DC DN, or the Sony 28-70mm OSS). There are a number of good macro lenses out there, but I’m not looking to break the bank at the moment.

I had a question for the group about focus type and macro shooting. Sony users, especially a6XXX users, do you prefer using AF lenses or MF lenses for underwater macro? What are the things that I gain/give up going one way or the other?

A few of the MF macro lenses I’m looking at:
  • Laowa 65mm f/2.8 2x APO
  • Laowa 85mm f/5.6 2x APO (especially interesting because it’s small!)
  • Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2x APO
And a few of the AF macro lenses:
  • Sony 50mm FE
  • Sigma 70mm DG
  • Tokina Firin 100mm FE
  • Sigma 105mm DG DN
 
Forget MF, it's way too slow to useful. The only real use case for MF macro is when you're shooting supermacro with a diopter, setting focus to minimum distance and just moving the camera until subject comes into focus, and the subject must be completely stationary.

Keep in mind that with the SeaFrogs housing, you don't have much of a choice when it comes to ports - there's the short macro port that fits Sony 30mm macro and the long macro port that fits Sony 90mm FE macro. The latter is 130.5mm long, and the port fits it quite precisely, so that's your guideline for lens length.

Tokina 100mm extends to focus, so it won't fit in a port. Same goes for the Sigma 70mm DG. Sigma 105mm has internal focusing, but it is 135mm long, so it won't fit in the available port either. Sony 50mm has some... very unfavorable reviews. I don't own one, but by all accounts it's quite slow and clunky, and the image quality is not great. It extends to focus, but it's short enough to fit into the available port even so. Still, I don't know how well, if at all, would it work with add-on wet diopters.

I shoot with a Sony A6300 in the SeaFrogs Salted Line housing, and my first macro lens was the Sony 90mm. It's got great image quality, but focusing is fairly slow, and 90mm focal length on APS-C crop is quite tight. After trying it on a blackwater dive and failing miserably, I went on Ebay and bought a Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM, a Metabones IV adapter, and a Sony 30mm f/3.5 Macro. I'm not particularly impressed with the latter; the 30mm focal length is just too short and wide for proper macro shooting, it's more of a fish portrait lens, but the Canon 60mm is now my primary macro setup. It's not as tight as the 90mm and focuses much faster, although it does tend to miss focus lock and hunt in poor lighting - having a focus light is extremely important.

I still use the 90mm, but only when I expect to encounter something really really tiny - in those cases, I bring a Weefine WFL-05S close-up lens along, and this gives me a maximum 2.3x magnification, for a frame width of approximately 1cm. Example shot:

7V13TIh.jpg


Those are clownfish eggs; each one is less than a millimeter in length. Here's a non-magnified shot of the same patch for a little perspective:

PvxxYtC.jpg


But most of the time now, when I'm setting up for macro, the Canon 60mm is my first choice. Its biggest limitation is that even with the adapter, it is somewhat shorter than the Sony 90mm, which causes it to sit recessed behind the port glass, which precludes the use of diopters for extra magnification.
 
1. Check with your housing manufacturer to see what ports are available for what lens first and then decide what lens to buy.

2. AUTO Focus!! I'd never buy a lens without auto focus even if I use manual focus part of the time. WHY on earth would you buy a manual focus lens that doesn't have auto focus depriving yourself of the most used option, auto focus, later??? I RARELY use manual focus, auto focus is the norm.
 
I went on Ebay and bought a Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM, a Metabones IV adapter

Does the Metabones adapter cause ANY issue in terms of focus speed, quality of pictures, etc., any issue at all?
 
Does the Metabones adapter cause ANY issue in terms of focus speed, quality of pictures, etc., any issue at all?
In poor light and at close range, it tends to hunt, i.e. the lens cycles from closest focus to infinity and back, without ever locking focus. With a focus light (I'm currently using a Weefine Smart Focus 1000), it almost always snaps directly into focus. In very challenging conditions such as blackwater, it does sometimes take a few tries to lock focus. It doesn't have any effect on picture quality as it does not contain any optics - it's simply a 26mm extension that translates Sony lens protocol into Canon and back. Note that Metabones also has the Speed Booster series of adapters; those do contain optics and affect picture quality. They're meant to adapt full-frame lenses to crop-sensor cameras and 'compress' the full-frame image circle into a smaller area, thus gathering more light.
 
a Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM, a Metabones IV adapter
What port are you using for this? I have the 6” dome, the short flat port (the one for the 16mm Sigma), and the standard flat port.
 
What port are you using for this? I have the 6” dome, the short flat port (the one for the 16mm Sigma), and the standard flat port.

Same port for 90mm and 60mm. The 60mm is a bit shorter, so I can't use wet diopters with it, but it doesn't vignette or try to focus on the port glass.

Is this the flat port that you have? The Canon 60mm is 70mm long + 26mm adapter = 96mm, whereas the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 is 93mm, so unless the port has a few extra mm of clearance, I don't think it will fit.
 
Is this the flat port that you have? The Canon 60mm is 70mm long + 26mm adapter = 96mm, whereas the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 is 93mm, so unless the port has a few extra mm of clearance, I don't think it will fit.



This is the one I have for the Sigma. With a 3mm deep B&W filter on the front, the lens is just barely touching the front of the port, (the same 96mm length). So there's a possibility that the 60mm + MB adapter could fit in that port, but it might push the camera out of the seat a little too far and make it difficult to operate the controls at depth. Maybe some testing is in order….

I do wish that Sea Frogs would post full specs of their ports (front and back diameter, flange depth and/or max lens length based on the port depth, etc.). That would make it a lot easier to at least find lenses that physically fit, so we can then test how well they do optically. Their compatibility charts seem to leave a lot of lenses out.
 
Ah, that one... frankly I forgot it even existed. Well, if you buy a Canon 60mm and it fits, let me know - I'll get that port for myself, as I'd like to have the option to use a diopter with the 60mm.

Edit: I just measured my 60mm + adapter stack, and it looks like 95mm or so, from the camera-side flange (not including the locking bits) to the tip. However, my measuring tool is a lembeh stick that has 10cm of ruler markings on it, and I don't know how accurate that 'ruler' is.
 
+1 for water contact optics. You might need to be willing to use the 16-50 or the 30mm 3.5, but pop the 67mm threaded macro port on if you have it, then add a nauticam cmc-1? Not the cheapest, but more flexible maybe?
 

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