All about wet lenses...

All about wet lenses...

Wet lenses can change everything.

Do you have a wet lens for your rig? No? Then you may want to read up.

Wet lenses fit on to the front of your housing. Also known as "add on lenses" they add macro or wide angle capabilities to your camera. Sea Tech can supply wet lenses from Epoque, Inon (who call theirs "attachment lenses"), Fantasea, Nauticam and even a couple of Ikelite ones.

They have a few different ways of attaching - screw, bayonet or push on. Again, Inon helpfully uses different terminology here and calls their bayonet fitted lenses "AD". Bayonet fittings are my personal favs, since they allow you to easily change a lens while underwater, and some brands, like Nauticam, even make flip holders, that allow you to flip a lens to the side easily. Both Inon and Nauticam make bayonet adapters that allow you to fit bayonet lenses. We love the simplicity of the Nauticam system, which you can see in action below.

Nauticam WWL-1 Bayonet Install Guide from Nauticam on Vimeo.

OK, I know I've been focusing on Nauticam a bit and that's not in everyone's price range, no matter how much we may wish it were. The key thing to remember with wet lenses is this: if you have a housing with a 67mm screw on the port, then a lot of wet lenses will fit it (there are adapters for other sizes too). Yes, you can upgrade with bayonet fittings and flip holders and lens holders that fit on your housing's arm system - and all that stuff is handy and awesome and will make your life easier - but at its core, a wet lens can help you capture images that you otherwise couldn't - for the fraction of the price of a new camera lens. The rest of that stuff is just (very) cool accessories, which will make your life a lot easier, but are not totally essential.

Some macro wet lenses can be stacked to create even stronger magnification! In this instance it'll either be using a joining piece like an adapter ring which will either come included or be sold separately. Bear in mind - if you're a beginner with macro lenses, you may want to start out with lower magnification, because macro photography can be a bit tricky to start with - so start low and work your way up to higher magnifications.

The Nauticam SMC-1 wet lens, stacked with the Multiplier-1 using the included adapter, fitted onto a flip diopter holder.

Ok, so maybe you're keen, but you're not sure where to start?

The following lenses would be good affordable place to start - all of these are 67mm fitted lenses. And remember, we have step-up and step-down adapters too (these can let you fit an M67 lens to a 46mm, 55mm or 77mm port).

Macro:

Affordable wide angle lenses:


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