Ikelite Port for G9 and UWL-100
I bought an Inon UWL-100 lens with the extra dome to get nice wide pictures with my Canon G9 and my Ikelite housing.
I have the "wide-port" witch is shorter than the original port to get rid of the vingetting. I attached the UWL-100 and dome and took some test pictures in the bathtub. I got really disappointed that my new side setup was not very sharp except in the middle of the picture.
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This is a picture in my bathtub with the original Ikelite port. The picture is taken with f/2.8. As you can see the sides and specially the corners are not very sharp but the center is in focus. There are also some minor vinjetting. |
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This is a crop of the lower left corner and it is very out of focus. |
I did some experiments and got to the conclusion that the UWL-100 was too far away from the camera lens. Even the short port was too long and due to the fact that you need a glass in the port made it impossible to get the camera lens close enough to the UWL-100.
I then got the idea that I would make a port without a glass so that the camera lens could be just a few millimeters from the UWL-100. The port would seal against the UWL-100 and the Ikelite housing so that would eliminate the need for glass.
I measured the distance between the camera lens and the housing and it was almost flush with the outer casing of the Ikelite house. This would mean that the UWL-100 would be just 2-3 millimeters away from the housing and this required some precise machining.
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This is my home made port. There is no glass. It will seal against the housing and against the UWL-100. This will of course work without the dome as well. |
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Here are the UWL-100 and dome mounted on my Ikelite house using my own port. |
Now the port was ready for the ultimate test in the bathtub. I tried it first without the camera... No water was entering the camera house.
I tried to take similar pictures as I did before with the original Ikelite port.
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The same scene with my own port in the bathtub. This is also taken using f/2.8 and a little better white balance. |
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This is the lower left corner and the image is almost as sharp as in the middle. |