Close-Focus Wide Angle

Eric Lambert · Issue 149, Mar/Apr 2026 · pp. 46–50

Products mentioned: Nauticam NA-A2020, Nauticam NA-A1, Tamron 20mm f/2.8 Di III 1:2, Backscatter MF-2, Retra Pro X, Nauticam EMWL, SAGA Dive custom glass dome

Some photographic ideas never really disappear. They simply wait. Long before digital sensors, autofocus algorithms, and precision- machined housings, underwater photography was an exercise in anticipation. Film forced restraint. Every frame mattered. Every decision, whether distance, exposure or timing, was final. You learned to see before pressing the shutter. I started underwater photography more than thirty years ago with a Nikonos III. No LCD. No histogram. Just a camera, a lens, and the quiet certainty that if you missed the moment, it was gone forever. Over the years, through more than 3,000 dives with half of them in cold, green Swiss lakes, I learned that the most compelling underwater images were rarely about magnification alone. They were about relationship: subject to environment, detail to context, foreground to story. One technique embodied that philosophy better than any o…