Tokina 10-17mm Zoom Gear Installation // Ikelite 200DLM/D Underwater H

The product shown in this video has been replaced by a new Zoom Gear for the Tokina 10-17mm. The new gear eliminates the use of a clamp and allows the camera to be taken in and out of the housing with the lens attached.

By John Brigham

If you're shooting a crop sensor camera, it's hard to find a better wide angle lens than the Tokina 10-17mm Fisheye. Unfortunately it's out of production but if you're lucky to own one or find one on the secondary market, then you can use it on newer Canon R-series cameras when combined with the Canon Mount Adapter EF-EOS R.

John shows you how to install the lens and Zoom Gear # 5509.30 onto an Ikelite 200DLM/D Underwater Housing for Canon 's line of compact R-series cameras including the EOS R100, R10, R7, and R8.

Installing the EF-EOS R Adapter

In order to adapt this lens to that camera body, you are going to need the EF to EOS R adapter. Unfortunately these lenses have been discontinued so if you have one of these in your arsenal, great. Otherwise, you can sometimes find them used and I highly recommend picking one up. You’ll get excellent coverage and you'll have very sharp images corner to corner and very fast autofocus. Attach the adapter and switch to autofocus instead of manual focus.

Installing the Zoom Gear

Now, the clamp and gear sleeve set (Universal Zoom Gear # 5509.30) will come with adhesive pads. Due to the diameter of this lens, you will not be needing the pads.

All you need to do is use the inside diameter of the clamp itself and gently walk it over the top of the lens until you reach the zoom ring of the lens itself. Make sure it's even all the way around the circumference. Because this is a very effective and low profile system you can just leave this on your lens even when you're not using the lens in your underwater housing.

Next, turn your attention to the port opening of the housing. Remove the body cap from the camera, take the gear sleeve, drop it down in, and align the rib of the gear sleeve with the red dot on the camera body. Then we're going to take our lens, make sure everything's switched in the right place, and that our clamp is in the correct place and line up that tab with the red dot.

As you feed the lens down in through the gear sleeve, make sure that the ribs of the gear sleeve go into the tabs of the clamp.

Once the gear sleeve ribs and tabs of the clamp are engaged you can bayonet the lens onto the camera body and rotate until you feel it click into place. You can turn the gear sleeve at this point to make sure that the lens is zooming properly.

Installing the Lens Port

At this point, we're going to take a little bit of Ikelite lubricant between our finger and thumb and apply a small film around the port sealing ring. While you're doing this, feel for any debris and visually inspect to make sure you don't have any hair or anything that's going to compromise the seal.

Next, take your DLM 6 inch Dome Port with Zoom # 5516.15 and you're going to make sure that the three thumbscrews are not protruding to the inside diameter then you're going to take your finger and run it across the sealing surface of the port and you're going to feel for any debris and visually inspect to make sure there's no hair there.

Now take the drive gear and you're going to position it on the left hand side so that your right hand is free for the shutter lever. Place it over port opening and apply a little downward pressure. Make sure that your drive gear is actually going to engage the zoom of the lens.

Now all you have to do is tighten the three thumbscrews down. There's no need to over tighten these, the seal occurred when the part went together, these just keep it retained.

Now you are ready to go shoot close focus wide-angle or any kind of fisheye shot. If you have any questions about this setup, shoot us an email ikelite@ikelite.com.

John Brigham is the Vice President & head of product development at Ikelite. He was born with a flair for design and an entrepreneurial spirit as son of Ikelite founder Ike Brigham. He worked his way up in the business and is a natural fit in the R&D side of things. John dives the equipment as much as possible to test product and put himself in the "fins" of the user. You may also find him on the other end of an email or phone call when you reach out for product advice and support. When he's not underwater he's flying drones, setting off rockets, training his German Shepherd "T2", and spending time with his family.