Correcting lenses for underwater use

Peter Scoones · Issue 19, Jun/Jul 2004 · pp. 45–47

45 One of the main advantages of using a land camera in an underwater housing is the wide choice of lenses you can use but this advantage can become a problem as the lenses are designed for use on land rather than underwater. One solution is a dome port which helps to eliminate most of the optical problems but the dome must be considered as one element of a two element lens system in order to get the full focusing range of your lens. This is something most housing manufacturers do not emphasise enough and it can lead to an underwater photographer not getting the best performance from the lens/ port combination. Assuming that we want to get the best quality underwater photographs it is neccessary to keep the water in between you and the subject to a minimum. It is the water which produces colour loss, definition reduction and overall clarity/contrast loss in our photographs so by keeping …