You might have heard of the Inon "bug eye" lens, officially called the Inon Underwater Micro Semi-Fisheye Relay Lens UFL-MR130 EFS60. Nauticam initially supported this lens with our "Macro port C60 - MR 130" for Canon EF-S 60mm. Now, for you Nikon shooters who were feeling left out, we've also added Nikon support with our "Macro port N60 - MR 130". Note that this port requires the Nikkor AF-D 60mm macro lens, and will not work with the AF-S 60mm.
Nauticam NA-7D housing with 60 macro port and Inon UFL MR 130The Inon UFL MR 130 lens is a very unique lens. Some people call it a "bug eye" lens. (Others call it an endoscope. We'll stick with bug eye.) It offers a perspective not found in another lens. Imagine yourself to be about 8 millimeters tall, and have fish eyes with a super wide field of view yet able to focus very close... that's the perspective. This is not the easiest lens to shoot, but the new and interesting perspective it brings to the table make it very interesting.
The depth of field with lens is minuscule... so stopping the lens down as much as possible is important. With these sample shots, I generally was at f/22. To have any chance at getting a decent background exposure, I found I had to up my ISO up to the 320 or 640 range, and slow the shutter down as well. I found auto-focus to work sometimes; but mostly I resorted to manual focus.
One of the things that I liked about the lens was, given the long physical length, is it puts the diver farther back from the creature, meaning the creatures seemed less afraid.
And since I was shooting this with a Canon 7D, 1080p HD video is available. I didn't shoot much video with it my first weekend out with the lens, but here's a short clip to give you an idea of some of the possibilities.