Observations from the Road:
Seacam Wet Two Diopter in Papua New Guinea
By Stephen Frink
I have previously tested Seacam’s Wet One diopter in St. Vincent, see http://www.seacamusa.com/seacam-diopters.shtml. 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 nonintrusive 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 with Wet Two
1:1
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.
Here’s the same fire dartfish from more or less the same working distance, but this time with a Wet Two diopter added:
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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