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Yes Nicolas, this is the kind of wet lens that has an unsealed cavity separating the rear lens element and the flat port of the compact camera housing. As you know, this cavity needs to be full of water or totally empty of water. Any inhomogeneity in the fluid or gas causes ugly refraction. I use the AOI bayonet system so that I can quickly swap macro and wide angle wet lenses during the same dive. For these split shots I submerged the entire camera, removed the wide angle lens, locked it back in position, then raised the centre of the lens to the water line and fired off a few shots before bubbles started to form in the cavity. Then I repeated the procedure, then I repeated the procedure, then I repeated the procedure. Most shots ended up in the delete bin, but a few turn out OK and then I touched up the few remaining defects in Photoshop.
I thought about using sticky tape to trap the water inside the cavity but I think that would be impractical. Most sticky tapes probably don’t work well in salt water and it would be very awkward wrapping and cutting the tape in the water anyway. One idea I just had is to glue a piece of flexibly plastic or rubber to the back of a Velcro strip which I could then use to quickly seal off the cavity underwater. There must be some clever way to solve this problem.
Isn’t
underwater photography so much fun, all the crazy things we can try? In some
ways it doesn’t matter if my photos don’t turn out well, it is so much fun trying
anyway. For these two images I was hoping a gigantic sea creature would swim
underneath the boat but I didn’t get lucky. One day maybe.