Macro lens (diopter) questions?

[Davey Jonesen]

What power diopter to you use underwater? +2, +4, +6?
How close are you to your subject when shooting?


I've read about focal lengths, magnification, and focusing distances but don't have any underwater experience. I want to get something practical to enlarge my subjects, but I don't want to get a diopter that requires me to get rediculously close to my subjects either cause I don't want to scare them all off.

 

[under water]

Most people that use wet lenses, including myself, are probably using the Inon UCL-165 close up lenses. They are about a +6 diopter. If you stack two of them you get a +12 diopter.
I use one and sometime stack a +4 Ikelite diopter on top of it.
If you are shooting with a DSLR, your best bet is to go with a macro lens.
How close you get depends on what you are shooting and how much you are using your zoom (if any) or what lens you are using. Usually 3-4 inches is pretty good, for me.

 

[Davey Jonesen]

I have a SLR for dry land, but I don't think it is a great model for underwater use so I bought a used setup from someone on the board. Maybe I'll go SLR in a few years and I can get a new SLR for dry/underwater use.

If you can get 3-4" from your subject then that is close enough for me. I found on my previous trip that I could get pretty close, but wasn't thinking about photography in the future and estimating actual distance.

 

[weeksd]

I have a 16-85mm nikon lens on my d40x nikon camera in an aquatica housing with dome port. For macro i add a +4 diopter to the lens inside the housing. Works good. You can shoot pygmy seahorses and other very small critters. You can get about 4 inches from the port as your closed focus point.

 

[diver 85]

I'd go with a +6....and then you can stack em(to get a +9 or +12 going) later on----IF---you get the correct kind ie: example a UCL 165 mm &/or a 330 mm......