Got one o' them cheap fisheyes to play with

[wfooshee]

Searching for fisheye lenses at places like eBay and Amazon and so forth I kept getting hits on Rokinon, Samyang, Bower, and other names, and it seemed like they were actually the same lens.

All of those brand names are indeed the same lens. The lens is cheap mostly because the aspherical element is molded glass, not ground glass.

Some weeks back I saw mattb's post in his star trails thread using this lens. I PM'd him a couple of questions and he was kind enough to respond, and I decided to take the plunge once I recovered from the bath I took upgrading my D5000 to a D7000. (I got a good price on a slightly used D7000, but practically gave away my D5000...)

I saw that they have a "chipped" version for the Nikon mount which allows auto-exposure (and lights the focus-confirm LED in the viewfinder,) where the "regular" lens (and the lens for all other mounts) is manual exposure. All version are manual focus. I ordered one from an eBay vendor and it arrived a couple of days ago. I took it out on my lunch break yesterday and here are some of the images I shot.

A park downtown here in Panama City:


Live oaks and Spanish moss


A sunny palm tree. (I think I'd like to bring up the midtones in this one)


I was only about 4 feet from the trunk of this tree, well inside its shady area:


Titled up a little bit. The sun was actually behind me.


At f:16, depth of field is almost a non-issue. Here I focused on the water fountain.....


.... and here I focused on the trees:


A sidewalk right on the bay. I intentionally kept the horizon centered to keep it flat.


Some things I brought home from the shooting: Keep your fingers behind the lens while holding the camera! I didn't actually shoot any, but several times I found my fingers in the image in the viewfinder while composing and focusing. A tripod would have helped, but I didn't want to lug one around just to play with it the first time. Secondly, at small apertures (most of these worked out to f:16) focusing is about the least critical thing you have to do, as shown by the water fountain shots. Stupidly, it never occurred to me while I was there to force it to f:3.5 and try it. Never said I was a professional tester!

For the money I'm very pleased. I couldn't justify what Nikon's would have cost, even used, for something I know I won't use very much, but wanted the experience of shooting with. Some of my shots had a lot of flare, but I don't know if that's cheap (or lack of) coatings, or if it's pretty normal with ultra-super-wide views. The view is 180 degrees diagonally on the Nikon's DX sensor. It would be circular on an FX, but the lens hood petals (not removable) are actually visible on a larger-format camera. (I mounted it on my F4, but did not waste any film with it.)

[mattb]

Fun! I really like that one looking up into the tree from in it's shadow.
For a lens I don't use a ton I love this one. Good to have in the kit for the perfect scenario.

Besides fingers, your own feet or the tripod legs can wind up in the shot if you aren't careful as well!

[armando_m]

it is fun isn't it ?

from my recent post of my trip to the beach, only 2 or 3 of the images were not shot with a fisheye

[wfooshee]

I saw those, and that was what got me to make sure and get down to the water. So, thanks!