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coroander last won the day on December 23 2014

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  1. You shouldn't need an extension. The 12mm is shorter than the 8mm FE which fits fine behind this dome. By foregoing the extension, the 12mm lens will not be able to focus (the 8mm FE focuses much closer). However adding a diopter to the 12mm will fix that problem. The problem with adding both an extension and a diopter is that the extension causes the lens to see a much more curved virtual image. That necessarily results in corners which are very soft and a strong +5 diopter (or more) will be needed to fix this problem. But instead of adding the extension, a diopter, by itself, will allow the 12mm lens to focus. Without an extension, the lens sees a flatter virtual image and the corners will be sharper. A lesser diopter (+2 or +3) with no extension should result in shaper corners, a wider field of view, and less distortion, plus there's no need to buy an extension.
  2. I'd be inclined to use a diopter on front of the 12mm lens behind the 3.5" dome without an extension. The extension will allow the lens to focus, but the cost is corner sharpness. A diopter will also allow the lens to focus, but corner sharpness should be better (as the lens is seeing a flatter section of the dome than with an extension). It's unclear exactly what diopter is optimal, but +3 would be a good place to start.
  3. I have the E-M5 housing and the 12-50mm lens/gears/port. I'm not entirely sure what movement of the gears you are referring to, but the springs in the 12-50mm gears are very stiff. I believe this is necessary because the springs in the 12-50mm gears have to be able to turn back the external knob when pressure on the knob is released. This isn't easy and it has to be able to do this at maximum depth when things may be even more difficult.
  4. Many thanks for posting these. I'm thinking about getting the DP-170 n85 version 1 and some extensions, for more versatility. I'm confused about all the different DP-170's though, there seems to be three? 1) DP-170 n85 version 1 2) DP-170 n85 version 2 (like version 1 with 25mm built-in extension) 3) DP-170 n120 (no idea what this is -- seems to be the same dome as the n85, but hard to tell, perhaps it's for DSLR housings?) Presumably all use the same glass and same optical coatings? Is it possible to attach the DP-170 n85 version 1 to the housing without using an extension?
  5. The Nauticam 6" dome and the 4" semi-dome have the same optical radius, i.e. the 4" semi-dome is just a piece of the larger 6" dome. All other things being equal (like the distance from the body to the front of the dome), the two domes will perform identically.
  6. Manual balance is useful for video underwater. But for stills just shoot RAW and forget about trying to set the camera's white balance underwater. If you feel the need to get a white balance, you can take a shot that includes something white and then use this to set the white balance for all other photos at around this distance/depth. When doing white balancing in this way you only need something white that occupies a dozen pixels in the image, and like manual white balance you don't need it in every image. I often just use some white bit of a logo on a buddy's gear to white balance at that distance for my current depth.
  7. There's zero chance that good results will be obtained with the 9-18mm behind the 3.5" or 4.33" dome ports. These ports are far too curved to allow the corners to have any chance of ever being in focus. The 9-18mm behind the 4" semi-dome (which has the same optical radius as the 6" semi-dome for the 7-14mm) with a +2 diopter looks excellent. 12mm test results behind the 4.33" dome: http://wetpixel.com/...=51858&p=342712 Storker's 9-18mm test results behind the 4" semi-dome: http://wetpixel.com/...=51969&p=343523
  8. Note that the 12-50mm in macro mode is 1:1 equivalent (25mm wide). Olympus specs on this lens are wrong. There are a number of threads here that discuss this and i've checked this myself.
  9. I have the 4.33" dome. I really like it with the 8mm, but it's not the perfect optical solution for the 12mm due to the extreme curvature of the 4.33" dome. The 4" semi-dome is just a smaller portion of the 6" semi-dome used for the 7-14mm. This flatter dome would be ideal for lenses like the 12mm, 14mm and 17mm lenses, except it's stuck way too far forward to deal with the massive extension of the 9-18mm lens. What's really needed is a shorter 4" semi-dome. This would be the perfect semi-dome for the the 12mm, 14mm, 17mm plus with extensions a wide variety of other lenses, including the 9-18mm, and any number of the standard zooms, 12-35mm, 14-42mm, etc. The stunning performance of the 9-18mm with a +2 diopter behind the 4" semi-dome, needs to be replicated for these primes plus offer greater flexibility by using extensions. 12mm test results: http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=51858&p=342712 Storker's 9-18mm test results: http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=51969&p=343523
  10. The current 4" semi-dome sits too far forward, i'm hoping Nauticam comes out with a shorter 4" semi-dome that can be used with a variety of lenses, like this lens and the 12mm by using extensions. Currently the port choices for the 12mm and other physically short lenses are less than ideal. However, i'm afraid Nauticam will just use make the only option a flat port for this lens and leave the current status quo for others.
  11. Also, i suspect your particular problem is because in: Custom Menu -> A. AF/MF -> Reset Lens is set to On. It needs to be set to Off to prevent the camera from resetting the focus.
  12. tobbe, if you use the settings here: http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=48625 then setting the camera to MF allows you to: push the lever on the back to trigger autofocus, but the camera will otherwise remain in MF.
  13. I think you're also limited to 1/160 sync speed with the A6000 using optical cables. The E-M10 does 1/320 over optical.
  14. It's power zoom, so the front gears (dial on port) will switch in/out of macro mode, while the back gears (dial on body) will turn slightly left and right to power zoom in/out. There's no way to manual zoom with this port and gears.
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