Wide Angle Set Up for Sony a6xxx

[rateyourdive.com]

Hi guys,

I am looking for the right set up for wide angle shooting with my Sony a6300. It's in a Meikon / Sea Frogs Salted Line Housing.

I have the following set up on my mind:

• Sony 16-50mm kit lens (full control with zoom and autofocus) with a wide angle wet lens.
• Sony 16 or 20mm pancake with wide angle or fish eye converter with 4" Dome Port.
• Sigma 19mm (with autofocus) and a wide angle wet lens.
• Samyang 8mm (can't use the aperture and focus inside the housing) with 4" Dome Port
• Samyang 12mm (same, no aperture, no focus control) with 4" Dome Port

I might be able to 3D print a ring to use at least the aperture of the Samyangs in the housing.


Which one would / do you use and why? Or do you have other ideas for me?


Thank for your help!

Regards,

Ricardo

 

[huwporter]

I've tried the Samyang 12mm, but behind the 7" port not the 4". With the 7" it works quite well, but with no autofocus you'll need to stop down to f5.6 or further to get adequate depth of field to shoot most subjects, and you need to experiment a bit with pre-setting the focus (from memory, I think it was about 30cm/1 foot for infinity focus behind the 7"). Don't know how it would work with the 4" but I wouldn't hope for much from the corners, if it even fits. Link to previous thread:

Nauticam 7" dome with Samyang 12mm f2

The Sony 16mm with wide or fisheye converters works OK with the 4" port, at least in the centre of the frame, but the corners (particularly for the fisheye) are well blurry. A decent wet wideangle or upgrading to the 7" dome will give you better results.

 

[Barmaglot]

I wouldn't bother with Samyang 12mm - it's a manual focus lens with a shallow depth of field (compared to a fisheye), so even stopped down, manual focus is just too challenging. Samyang 8mm in a 4" dome could work - I've used 7Artisans 7.5mm in such a setup, with the zoom ring from 16-50mm lens adapted to focus - but with its almost hemispherical field of view, it's not an 'everyday' lens. Same for 16mm + VCL-ECF adapter.

16-50mm in the short macro port + wet wide lens + close-up lens should provide good image quality and full flexibility, since you can switch wet lenses in the water. Sigma 19mm is probably not worth bothering with.

I used Sony 10-18mm with 6" dome on my last trip, it gave good results overall, but corners were more than a little soft. I got the 8" dome in the recent Black Friday sale; need to get it in a pool and test various configurations.

 

[rateyourdive.com]

Thanks for your thoughts!

Here is a comparison of the Sony 16-50 and Sigma 19mm: SEL1650 vs Sigma 19mm both at 19mm f8: Sony Alpha / NEX E-mount (APS-C) Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
The sigma looks great in the corners.

I thinks it's better to use that one or the 16-50 with a wide angle wet lens instead of the hussle with a manual Samyang.

 

[Barmaglot]

Thing is though, land-based test results often have little bearing on a lenses underwater performance - some lenses that are considered poor on land work very well underwater, and excellent topside lenses lose their capability behind a port. With Sony 16-50mm vs Sigma 19mm, you'd be trading away a very useful zoom range, image stabilization and manual focus capability for some corner sharpness - which may or may not manifest in real world use. Also, while I don't have personal experience with it, I've read multiple mentions of Sigma lenses, particularly older ones, exhibiting slower and less reliable autofocus than native Sony glass.

By the way, which wide angle wet lens are you looking to pair with it?

 

[rateyourdive.com]

That's a good point. Thanks buddy!

I thought about giving the Meikon Wet Lens a shoot although it's just a correctional dome, since it's way cheaper then the rest: Wide Angle Wet Correctional Dome Port Lens

or maybe

• Fantasea BigEye Lens M67 Mark II
• UWL-04 67mm
• Fantasea UWL-400F

What do you think?

Also I am wondering what would be the difference in using a correctional dome or a dry dome with the 16-50mm? I already own a 4" Dry Dome.

 

[Barmaglot]

Both the Meikon correctional dome and the Fantasea BigEye simply restore the in-air field of view, same as a dry dome does. I haven't shot the 16-50mm in the 4" dome, and only did half a dive with it in a 6" dome (my regulator started leaking air, so I had to abort), but the field of view should be similar, if not identical. For example, this is a shot with 16-50mm in a 6" dome, and this is the same lens and camera behind a flat port (the older fixed-port SeaFrogs housing) and wet dome. Note that the former used strobes and the latter LED lights, so it's not quite an apples to apples comparison.

The advantage of the wet dome is that you can take it off in the water and shoot smaller stuff, either with or without a diopter. This adapter helps tremendously with that. Other than that, I don't think it will be very different from a 4" dome; they're roughly the same size.

The latter two lenses that you listed are actual lenses, with multiple internal elements - they will give you a considerably wider field of view than either a dry dome with a normal lens, or a simple wet dome on a flat port, and will rival an ultrawide lens such as Sony 10-18mm, although they will not be as wide as a dedicated fisheye lens like Samyang 8mm.

Edit: fixed link.

 

[rateyourdive.com]

Nice. Thanks again! Can you check your two links to the pictures? They seem to be the same. Would be great to see where the difference is.

 

[Barmaglot]

Yeah, I fixed the second link.

 

[rateyourdive.com]

Which wet dome did you use for the second picture?