Fish eye and extreme wide-angle

[belgiumreporter]

I allways had a soft spot for xtreme wideangle and fish eye lenses. over the years i gathered some with the latest aquisition being the Rokinon 8mm 3.5.

Here's what else is there: left to right :

10.5mm 2.8 nikkor

10-20mm 1.4-5.6 sigma

FC-E9 nikon fish eye adapter

12-24mm 4.5-5.6 sigma

8mm 3.5 Rokinon

and in the middle on the Fuji FC -E8 nikon fish eye adapter

If the wheather gets any better i'm planning to do a simple comparative test and publish some results.

[antonio]

Oh please do!

[belgiumreporter]

Here's a first result, the nikon 10.5mm and the 8mm Rokinon
As expected the rokinon is wider than the nikon though they both claim to be 180° diagonally on DX format
The nikon is a whole lot sharper but i guess i focussed the rokinon wrong, this will be further examined in a next test. 

Nikon 10.5mm


Rokinon 8mm


Even though a lot of people claim these fish eyes allmost dont need to be focussed due to their extreme dept of field this isn't exactly true and caution needs to be taken. A problem with the rokinon is there isn't a depht of field scale on the lens so it's a bit difficult to set a hyperfocal distance.

Top left corner at100%
nikon

rokinon


To be continued....

[belgiumreporter]

Here's a few interesting shots were the difference between a 12mm wideangle and a 12mm fish eye is shown.

The 12mm wideangle is a 12-24 sigma zoom on a D800 full frame camera, the "12mm" fish eye is a 8mm rokinon wich on the D7100 DX format has a 12mm equivalent focal lenght compared to FX full frame format.

The Rokinon captures more "image" in the frame but has a very distorted rendering of the image while the sigma wideangle keeps all straight lines straight but loses a few degrees of angle compared to the Rokinon. If the Rokinon is de-fished software wise then a lot of image is lost and the sigma has the advantage over the Rokinon. The Sigma is also sharper than the Rokinon at the same apperture.



With the horizon in the middle of the frame in a landscape shot the fish eye distortion becomes less apparent here's the comparison between the Sigma and the Rokinon. With the raster in the bottom of the rokinon shot it is still clear there's fish eye distortion, if the foreground would have been soil or grass the distortion would have become less apparent

[belgiumreporter]

Here the Sigma 12-24 FX and the Sigma 10-20 are compared, both at the shortest focal lenght, both at max aperture.




The 12-24 is a lot sharper in this shot, though from what i've tested this isn't allways the case as the 12-24 struggles with flare wich in certain lighting conditions detoriates the image quality.

here in a cut out from the above image the difference is obvious. 

[antonio]

The fisheyes are good for specific types of photography, I really like the look they put out but in specific contexts.

I'm guessing for a whole more overall photography work the wideangle would be better.

If you hadnt put up the close up on the carts I wouldnt think there was any difference in sharpness on the last photo lol

[yashica1943]

I have been using a Meike 6.5 mm for a couple of years now. I started with it on a Sony a6000 at first and now I have gone to Sony full frame there is a lot of black border but the actual image is very acceptable.
For the right subject I think that fisheye can be appropriate and not a gimmick.
I now use it on a very cheap Sony NEX body which makes more sense than using it on & off my a7.
There is a 'photographer stance' to be utilised with these lenses, lean forward and keep your feet out of frame!

[belgiumreporter]

Here's a shot i've made with the FC-E8 adapter on the coolpix 4500, similar results can be obtained on just about any camera on wich the adapter can be mounted, i used it extensively in combination with the Fuji X10 with the lens set at about 28mm will give the (real) circular fish eye with an approximate diagonal angle of around 190° your feet will allmost allways be in the picture if your not very carefull. so far i've tested both the FC-E8 and the much larger and heavier FC-E9 i can't see any quality difference, guess i'll need to do some more testing to confirm or debunk this issue.

Shopping gallery in Brussels

[belgiumreporter]

Now let's do a little test with the Nikon Fish eye converters FC-08 0.21x and FC-09 0.20x

What i've said about the difference between the 8 and the 9 needs some more explenation.

Here's them both next to each other there's a serious size and weight difference.


Next to the FujiX10 test camera



he E9 image is very good, to achieve the same angle the E8 needs to be set to a shorter focal lenght wich results in a smaller image circle.

With more "black" beside the circle the light meter get's fooled in over exposing( knowing this, it can be compensated)

If the same quality like the E9 is wanted zooming in further is necessary so the circle touches the borders of the image. this results in better quality but less angle.





The widest fish eye effect is obtained on the coolpix 990 (for wich the E8 was made in the first place) it has a special "fish eye" setting in the menu wich optimises the focal lenght and light metering for use with the E8 ( both full frame and circular modes)

The sensor of the 990 however is no match for the X10 maybe the coolpix 4500 will be somewhat better but i haven't got a battery for it anymore...




The E9 won't fit on the swivel body coolpix as it was made for the 5400/5700/8700/8400 series if you can find one they are mostly that expensive you're better of just buying a "real" fish eye lens!

[belgiumreporter]

The focus troubles i've had with the Rokinon 8mm forced me to do some further testing. At some point i thought the lens was out of culimnation due to a knock or drop.

But closer examination of the files showed somewhere in the image was sharpness that wouldn't be there if the lens was damaged. I then tried to put the focus of the lens on a fixed distance and place the camera on the set distance away from the subject.

Still no good results but a lot of back focus...

Turns out the distance scale on the lens is completely off. I then used life view at maximum enlargement to see if i can get my subject in focus no matter wich distance the scale indicated, it is that way i finally got a sharp shot.

Now to conclude this test i tried to focus at infinity, but the lens goes way past infinity so i have to conclude the Rokinon is not adapted for the right index (lens to sensor) distance and i guess these cheap manual lenses just come with a mount to fit a given camera but aren't correctly adjusted, either that or i've got a terrible example wich passed the end control?

The trap i've walked in to is to just use the lens expecting it would work fine as the details in the finder are so small there's no way to focus correctly, closing the diafragm down would solve some of these problems but this is in many cases not possible. Anyway with all this in mind the Rokinon will disappear in one of the drawers probably never to be used again, the trusty Nikkor 10.5 will now just have to work a bit harder
The best i've got with the Rokinon on the nikon 7100, it wasn't easy...
This time i really lived up to my credo, shot first and began asking questions later 

[belgiumreporter]

And now for something completely different: the Nikon Keymission 170 !

This little GO-PRO clone by Nikon works very good for fish eye snap shots on any terrain. As the name suggests it has a 170° angle of view (on land) weighs next to nothing an can endure a lot of abuse.

It is mainly for shooting footage but i found it quite capable for the occasional snap shot.

Next to the Nikon 1 waterproof housing, a huge size difference, depending on your needs you'll have to decide wich gear to take out



Shot with the keymission: Evy at the pool of the hotel were we were stranded and quarantined in the village of Rohet India. We were the only guests and had a staff of 15 at our disposal, quarantine could be worse

[belgiumreporter]

Next test: i've got a few Nikon 1 cameras, with some lenses, tried both the FC-E8 and the FC-E9 on the 10mm 2.8 prime and the 10.5 -30mm 3.5 zoom

The best results were achieved with the 10mm-FC-E8 combination, the FC-E9 gave disappointing results, come to show size dosn't allways matter.

A lot of pixels are lost in this combination as the image circle is a lot smaller than the complete frame. Still the Nikon1 camera's make a handy combination with the E8. With the 10.5-30mm zoom it becomes rather flimsy as the added weight to the front of the lens puts a lot of strain on the extended plastic barrel of the zoom a problem wich dosn't exist with the compact 10mm prime.

[antonio]

Awesome posts! these side by sides are great