GEAR TESTS: Nauticam Super Macro Converter (SMC) 67mm

Chris Parsons Nauticam Team Member

This new macro lens was a hit with the demo participants; I practically had to wrestle it away from them to get a dive in with it!

The SMC was designed from the ground up to be a wet macro lens. By this I mean that it, by design, takes into account all of the air-water-glass interfaces, and corrects for the refraction of each. By doing this, the lens shows considerably less distortion and aberration than the "diopter" lenses that we'll all become accustomed to shooting. It is especially noticeable at more open apertures, meaning that it is easier to acquire subjects and grab focus - because your camera uses an open aperture to do those things. 

The SMC gets the most magnification from lenses like the Nikon 105mm and the Canon 100mm, but because it is not just a close-up lens, i.e. diopter, it allows us to use lenses like the Canon EF-S 60mm macro. This is a huge benefit; the 60mm is so versatile already - this enables us to shoot super macro with it by just adding a wet lens. 

We used the SMC with the Nauticam flip diopter holder, which make using the SMC convenient. A quick flip and the lens is positioned correctly; flip it out of the way and you are back to shooting just the primary lens. 

I mostly shot video here with the SMC, as you can see in the video below - all of the really tight shots were done with the SMC.




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