SEACAM Wet Two Diopter

Observations from the Road: Seacam Wet Two Diopter in Papua New Guinea

I have previously tested Seacam’s Wet One diopter in St. Vincent. However, for this trip to Papua New Guinea I had the opportunity to test the new, more powerful Wet Two diopter. Having seen the results, I have to make a rather bold statement … anyone using Seacam, who is interested in macro photography, absolutely needs this tool!

Why:

Easy on and off – it simply press fits inside the small sunshade built into the Seacam flat port, and it is small enough to slip in your BC pocket when not in use. Extremely non-intrusive to carry, and super easy to install UW. Purge holes displaces the water for easy installation.

Powerful. Here are two examples of the Wet Two on a sedentary subject, first at 1:1 rack on a Canon EOS1DsMKII camera, and then with Wet Two. Note that this is with a full frame camera. Ultimate magnification will be greater with a cropped camera like the D2X.

1:1
1:1
1:1 with Wet Two
1:1 with Wet Two
1:1
1:1

1:1 with Wet Two
1:1 with Wet Two

You can get "closer". This one I did not predict, and is reason enough to go with the Seacam wet diopter concept. With skittish animals you can more easily fill the frame from a greater distance! Here’s a fire dartfish I tried to get as close to as I could with my 100mm macro. This is not 1:1 because it would pop into its hole in the sand before I could ever get that close.

100-macro-fire-goby

Here’s the same fire dartfish from more or less the same working distance, but this time with a Wet Two diopter added:

100-macro-fire-goby-wet-two

I don’t mean this to be a scientific analysis, for maybe the fish got more used to me, or maybe I held my breath longer. Who knows exactly why, but I know for a fact I could get head shots of some of the small fish on the reef with a Wet Two, while I was lucky to get full body shots with the 100mm macro lens alone.

The Wet One and Wet Two diopters are $295 each. There are a limited number of prototype Wet One-and-a-Half diopters for $200 each, perfect for those who want to own only one rather than the set.

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