UKPHOTOGRAPHY
Wet lens wonders
For an underwater photographer it ’ s an age-old pre-dive dilemma : wide angle or macro ? Torbay BSAC member Terry Griffiths takes a look at a new bit of kit that renders the question obsolete
Some time ago , I was thinking about going back to a compact camera – remembering the days of my old Sea & Sea 1G with its collection of wide and macro wet lenses . Then I came across the Nauticam MWL-1 Macro to Wide Angle lens – an ultra-wide-angle lens that attaches in front of a macro lens underwater – and wondered if it could really be so good as to justify its price tag of £ 1,600 . After some advice from well known photographer and
UK distributor of Nauticam kit Alex Tattersall , one arrived in the post for me to try out .
Bad weather in the Torquay area meant zero visibility . That was sorted , then – I was off on a road trip to Scotland , the savior of many a UK diving window . Packing up my gear in darkest December , I left my trusted Tokina 10-17mm fisheye lens behind for the first time since I bought it . Six hundred miles later , I arrived at Loch Fyne in the dark . My buddy and I had been sleeping in our vans in a discrete lay-by but , as another car was parked there already , I thought I ’ d best stay out of the way for a while . Ten minutes later – to my relief – divers ’ lights emerged from the depths of the loch .
Early morning brought mist and rain but , for the very first time , no worry about what lens to take diving . Still , I wondered whether the images would be sharp . Would the lens change what I photographed , I wondered , and how ?
Terry ’ s camera rig . The wide-angle convertor ( MWL ) is on the front port , while a supermacro lens is mounted on a flip hinge above the port
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