The Underwater Club › Forums › Equipment and Techniques › Returning from the film age › Reply To: Returning from the film age
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Hey @bwagner3
This sounds like a very solid setup covering all kinds of wide-angle photography.
No macro lens in sight so I am guessing you’re not too interested in that genre, otherwise the Sony 90mm is an excellent pick. It is true you could use your 24-70mm behind a 230mm dome, but it makes an un-necessarily bulky setup for fish portraits (24-70mm is too narrow for wide-angle) – see this module for more details: https://theunderwaterclub.com/lessons/which-lenses-for-which-underwater-photos/
I think starting with the Sony 16-35mm and Canon 8-15mm before the Nikonos 13mm is sound, the latter is the one you don’t want to scratch, so best to get comfortable again with less unique optics.
If you didn’t have your Nikonos lens, I would have recommended a smaller dome for the Canon 8-15mm (100mm or 140mm are better suited to CFWA), but since you have the 13mm, you might as well avoid that expense.
The Ikelite strobes are good and reliable (I’ve reviewed them, as well as a couple of others here: https://theunderwaterclub.com/blog), a friend of mine has one for sale if that’s of interest (see the classified forum).
When it comes to positioning them underwater, 50cm each side is a good starting point, but you’ll get the best results by adjusting their position/spacing to suit the subject/conditions. See this module of our wide-angle course, for guidance on strobe positioning: https://theunderwaterclub.com/lessons/strobe-positioning-essentials-for-wide-angle/