Sony 30 Mm F3.5 Macro - Any Good Under Water? Alternatives?

[LaGa]

Hi all,

as many others, I am trying to figure out what lenses I should pack for an upcoming trip.

I will use an a6000 in a meikon housing, so my choice is restricted to lenses fitting into the meikon housing (I am planning to see, if I can extend the length of the "port", but won´t be able to do so before this holiday...).

Of course, the 16-50 mm kit lens will come with me, but are there other lenses that I should consider? I have read about the use of the following lenses in this housing:

Sigma SE 19mm f/2.8 EX DN,

Sigma 30/2.8 EX DN,

Sony SEL 16mm f/2.8,

Sony 35/1.8.

However, I am not sure if these will really give me much better image quality or usability of the camera in this housing over the kit lens? Any views/opinions are welcome.

I would love to have the means to take ok macro shots. Would the Sony 30 mm f3.5 be an option?
I would love to hear about your first hand experience!

Of course, I would be thrilled if you know about other alternatives for good lenses to be used in the meikon housing

I would be happy to be able to go wider also, but I guess the maximum width I´ll get out of this camera/housing combination will be the 16mm with the Meikon wide angle (or better, correction of flat port?) wet lens. Please correct me, if I am wrong here.

Cheers,
Lars

 

[dlutzer]

Hi Lars,

I have a Nex7 and started shooting with the 30mm 3.5 a few years ago. I love the lens, very sharp, great for fish portraits or wider macro scenes, and the auto focus is pretty solid in some cases even without a focus light in some cases.

The only real negative I have is that for true macro you have a very small working distance and you really can't use an add on macro lens for super macro. But for overall underwater work I do enjoy it.

I recently started working with the 50mm touit macro lens. It's amazingly sharp, but the auto focus is very very slow. A focus light is a must. But the photos are amazing and the extra working distance is appreciated. Plus you can add a stacked lens for super macro but that again will cut your working distance.

I haven't tried it, but some have had success with the kit zoom and adding on a macro lens to the front of the port.

Hope this helps!
Dave

A few with the 30mm

 

[LaGa]

Hi Dave,

thanks for your answer. I´m very glad to hear about your positive experience with the 30mm.
The working distance was what I was most concerned with. Do you have a rough estimate of how close it focuses under water? I´m a bit afraid that I would have to touch the little critters with my housing to get decent magnification?

On the other hand, all other macro lenses I found so far won´t fit into my housing without modifications of the latter...

I don´t think I will get into super macro any time soon, as I am not allowed to dive for the time being and thus my underwater time is restricted by my ability to hold my breath. I should properly learn macro first (and become better in holding my breath) before trying to use additional diopters to a macro lens So not having that option is not a downside for me.

I was aiming on using a strobe for illumination, but maybe I have to consider a focus light in addition? As said, I will snorkel and most of my activity will be within the upper 10 m, maybe 15 m (if I find something really tempting, but that´s where I reach my limit) and close to the equator. For evening/night snorkelling I have used a small focus light that sits within my strobe. How strong a focus light do you think is needed for relatively dark spots?


Thanks again,
Lars

 

[dlutzer]

Hi Lars,

For macro it's close. Like a couple of inches close. The closer you are the more magnification you get. Though this will also depend on how much room is in your port. Meaning of the lens is close to the end of the port you will have x amount of distance. But if your lens is a lot shorter than the port you may have to be on top of whatever you are shooting.

I personally find that if within 8 ft of water or less I usually don't use a strobe as it blows out the highlights. Though if the water is really murky or it's a cloudy day I might need something extra.

For night diving so far I have always used a strob. I don't know if a focus light would be enough to light the scene.

 

[LaGa]

Hi Dave,

the good news is that the lens will be very close to the port of my housing. I guess there would be less than 5 mm in between lens and glass of the port. So that should give me a few cm to play with before loosing the advantage of a macro lens

Regarding focus light, I was wondering, if that is needed to acquire focus properly. I imagine it is harder to focus with a shallow field of depth in comparison to a non-macro setup for wide angle shots or fish portraits? I would than use strobes, where necessary to expose the image.

Thanks again, I very much appreciate your answers!

 

[dlutzer]

I have always found that during the daytime the 30 mm has no problem auto focusing without a focus light. Maybe a little harder if only an inch or so away from the subject or in darker conditions And it of course doesn't hurt to have one.

 

[Ashantiashanti]

Hey Lars!

I am really considering getting the A6000 + the Meikon set-up as it is such a cheap option for great UW photography and video. Did you decide on some lenses for it that you can recommend that fits the Meikon housing?

Thanks!

 

[LaGa]

Hi Ashantiashanti!

I experienced the A6000 as a bit of a mixed bag underwater (and above).
Partly, that can be because of the use of a Meikon housing, as it is not exactly flexible when it comes to choice of lenses.

Personally, I am not very satisfied with the 16-50mm kit. It may focus reasonably fast, but I do not get many really crisp pictures out of it. The lens is great, of course for carrying the camera around, as it collapses nicely, and it seems to work just as well under water as on land - at least as long as you have reasonably clear water and enough light. The downside seems to be below average image quality. It is not bad, but it is definately a few steps down from what you can expect from the 30mm f3.5 macro or the 50mm f1.8 lenses. That, of course is not really suprising. That being said, the kit lens is ok underwater and is rather versatile. I used almost the complete zoom range for different shots under water, and found that image quality improves a lot when staying away from 18mm to over 20mm (I tried to stay above 24 mm). Generally, I tried to stay around 24-40mm to get the best results. The lens did focus fast enough to get some good shots of fast moving baby sharks.

I mostly snorkel and do therefore have a limited time frame to take the shot. That means I do sometimes have to stay further away from the subject than I would like to and often I cropp images to about 2/3, sometimes to 1/2 during post processing. Since the image quality is lacking a bit I tended to use the 30mm f3.5 macro lens instead. It is about 1 mm to long for the Meikon housing, but it will fit, if you take off some of the small rupper buffers on which the camera rests in the housing. The lens is much sharper and I found image quality to be generally satisfactory to very good (again, I did not expect the very best, considering the choice of housing, but I was positively surprised). The downsides of that lens in comparison to the kit lens was slower focusing (which made it hard to use for fast moving subjects) and it was even more difficult to obtain focus in low light than with the kit lens. During dusk and at night I had to switch to my older Canon eos m (first version), as that one was much more likely to focus in low light.
So I was very satisfied with the 30mm lens on the A6000, but you should consider what you want to use it for.You can expect good image quality for macro work and fish/coral/ect. portraits, but in my experience it is not well suited for situations that require fast focusing and in low light settings.

A general remark to the A6000 (with the few lenses that I used, which are the kit lens, the 30mm f3.5 macro and the 50mm f1.8): focus is fast, but it is far from reliable when lighting is not optimal. Focus is by far not always spot on, which is not caused by consistent front or back focusing, but focus simply misses relatively often - not by much, but enough to end up with pictures that simply lack "crispness". I have to say, though, that I often take pictures of animals and objects with fine detail, so I am looking closely on sharpness on single hairs (yes, you might say I sometimes pixel-peep).
One other thing to be aware of is the "flash issue": the Meikon housing allows to pop up the flash under water, but you will not be able to put the flash down again. That means that you have to use flash for the rest of your dive or switch to automatik settings (only in non-manual settings can you disable the flash when it is popped up...)

As a quick summary, I would definately recomment the A6000 in a Meikon housing, considering what you get for your money. I haven't followed up on underwater gear for the last year, but I doubt that you get a much more capable combination for the same price (especially if you get a good used A6000). The housing held up very well, but restricts you choice of lenses and does not allow to turn off the flash mechanically under water. The kit lens is fast enough, but does not give you the very best image quality (image quality is far from bad, though). The 30mm f3.5 macro lens fits into the housing with a very minor modification of the housing (reversable) and can give rather good image quality, but it seemed to be slower focusing than the kit lens. The camera does not work well for me in low light conditions (a focus light helps a lot).

Please note that these are only my personal experiences and that other people might feel differently. Also, different settings may improve some of the issues I had.

I hope this helps

 

[Ashantiashanti]

Hi Ashantiashanti!

I experienced the A6000 as a bit of a mixed bag underwater (and above).
Partly, that can be because of the use of a Meikon housing, as it is not exactly flexible when it comes to choice of lenses.
...

As a quick summary, I would definately recomment the A6000 in a Meikon housing, considering what you get for your money. I haven't followed up on underwater gear for the last year, but I doubt that you get a much more capable combination for the same price (especially if you get a good used A6000). The housing held up very well, but restricts you choice of lenses and does not allow to turn off the flash mechanically under water. The kit lens is fast enough, but does not give you the very best image quality (image quality is far from bad, though). The 30mm f3.5 macro lens fits into the housing with a very minor modification of the housing (reversable) and can give rather good image quality, but it seemed to be slower focusing than the kit lens. The camera does not work well for me in low light conditions (a focus light helps a lot).

Please note that these are only my personal experiences and that other people might feel differently. Also, different settings may improve some of the issues I had.

I hope this helps

Thanks so much Lars! I will mostly be filming underwater and so found a great deal on ebay for the A6000 + kit lens and the Sony 35mm 1.8. I have also read on other forums, specifically DPreview, that the 35 1.8 should also fit, so I am really crossing my fingers that it does once I get the housing. Have you used the Dome wet lens? And do you think investing in a strobe light might be worth it regarding the focusing?

Thanks!

 

[LaGa]

Hi again,
as far as I am aware, the 35mm f1.8 has the exact same dimensions than the 30 mm f3.5, so it should fit just fine and be close to the glass of the port. I have used the dome lens briefly, but not enough to make a statement, really.

What do you plan to take videos of? The focus light on my strobe (Sea&Sea YS-110) is not very strong and is really just suited to give enough light for focusing on relatively close objects. I'm not updated on video lights, but there should be a range of different lights that are much stronger and wide angled. I am sure others will be able to fill in with their experience here