The Avast Marine Porthole is an interesting aquarium accessory which has become a mainstay of the aquarium world, despite having nothing to do with keeping the aquarium alive and healthy. Neigh instead, the Porthole is part of that final step of enjoying a beautiful healthy reef tank by taking top down photos of the reef aquarium you’ve grown in the most flattering light possible, from above.
During our first encounter with the Porthole from Avast Marine, we weren’t too thrilled with the way it worked, and gave it a lukewarm review. Then on an outing viewing reef tanks we didn’t have our standard top-down, in-tank viewing equipment handy and we were ‘forced’ to use a Porthole, and this experience turned out to be a very good one.
Ever since then we’ve actually travelled the globe with our own personal Porthole for taking top down aquarium shots, many of which have been shared with you on this very website. We know oodles of other reef aquarium and fancy corla photographers who also have come to depend on the trusty Porthole and due to this initial success, Avast marine has redesigned a new Porthole.
The new Avast Marine Porthole is a refinement of all the features that made the original a pleasure to use, but wait there’s more! The new Porthole is specially designed to accomodate a wide range of cameras, not just those with a lens large enough to be fixed with three nylon set screws. The new Porthole accomodates both camera lenses from DSLS and mirrorless cameras, but also has a built in tripod mount-screw for fixing smaller point and shoot cameras, and it also has a built-in C-clamp for holding the most popular cameras in the world, smartphones.
Priced at the same $44.99, the new Porthole from Avast Marine appears to be refined in its construction from top to bottom, now with a new white acrylic body and a much better connection to the clear acrylic lens. In addition to the refinements to the overall design, we spy a trio of set screws on the lens-side of the Porthole which hints at a possibility of attaching filters for even more improved top down photographs.
Users of the larger, long-lens Porthole are not left behind either as the new Porthole also includes a model with an extra long barrel for shooters that have especially endowed lenses. Both of the new Porthole top down camera accessories are available now from Avast Marine and we for one can’t wait to try them out.
