Sont A6xxx - Any port for the 16-55 F2.8 ?

[Pyndle]

Hi,

I've been shooting with my 16-50mm in the seafrogs case for years but I also bought the 16-55 F2.8 for land. I haven't seen any option to dive with that lens but maybe I missed it (or there's a port that works even though Sea Frogs doesn't mention it). Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Hoag]

Have you sent an email to Sea Frogs? They might not mention a port on their website, but their own in house testing might have found one that maybe isn't ideal but is acceptable or maybe their testing has confirmed that none of their ports produce acceptable results.

 

[Pyndle]

I've tried but they're not very helpful. All the responses I get to questions like that are "everything is on the website"

 

[Hoag]

I've tried but they're not very helpful. All the responses I get to questions like that are "everything is on the website"

That is too bad. I would have hoped that they might have been more responsive than that. It is too bad that good customer service seems to be a lost art in far too many companies.

 

[Pyndle]

That's true, good customer service is rare.

I guess you'd need to be quite knowledgeable about the niche that is underwater photography to be able to provide proper support for a company like that. Probably not very easy to find. Especially for a low cost manufacturer in China.

 

[Barmaglot]

To the best of my knowledge, no housing manufacturer supports this lens so far. Sony APS-C cameras are supported by Nauticam, Aquatica, Ikelite, Fantasea, Easydive, Subal (only NEX), Isotta (only A6600), Acquapazza, Recsea, Sea & Sea and SeaFrogs, but none of them feature the 16-55mm f/2.8 on their port charts.
To be fair, I don't see much point in housing this specific lens. It extends to zoom, which makes it less suitable for use behind domes, as you can't have a single port extension that will perfectly match it at any focal length. This also makes it near-impossible to use behind flat ports with wet lenses, as these systems need the camera lens front element and wet lens rear element to be as close as possible to each other, and until someone develops a port that can telescope while retaining water-tightness, this isn't happening. The bright f/2.8 aperture is wasted underwater except in some very niche situations, and I have an entirely unfounded suspicion that in a lens this expensive, field curvature is very well controlled... which works against good image quality when shooting underwater through a dome. All in all, it doesn't really offer any meaningful advantages over 16-70mm f/4 or even 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6.

 

[Pyndle]

I agree with you on the fact that it's technically challenging, I forgot that it extends to zoom.
I was thinking the f2.8 would give more bokeh for macro.
And the image quality is 10x better than the 16-50 on land, you can really see the difference in sharpness.

 

[Barmaglot]

I was thinking the f2.8 would give more bokeh for macro.

Heavens no, depth of field when shooting macro is thin as it is. For example, this baby lionfish was shot at f/8 (90mm macro lens):

I rarely use apertures wider than f/16 when shooting macro, and often stop down all the way to f/22.

And the image quality is 10x better than the 16-50 on land, you can really see the difference in sharpness.

Murky water is a great equalizer, and the additional lens element in the shape of water/glass/air boundary at the port opening screws up with the lens designers' assumptions something fierce. You really can't rely on land comparisons when evaluating lenses for underwater use.

 

[Pyndle]

Hmm that makes sense

You see no difference in quality on the 10-18 and the 16-50 at 16mm for example? (I'm sure you've done the test )

 

[Barmaglot]

I haven't done a comparative test at that specific setting, but to be honest, for my purposes, both are plenty good enough. I don't print, and on a computer, TV, or phone screen, no one can really tell the difference unless they go to like 400% magnification. The difference between 10-18mm and 16-50mm is more about composition than IQ.