Wide Angle Lens vs Fisheye

[PepperT]

I'm looking at the Nikon 10-24mm wide angle lens but I don't want a fisheye lens. Is there specific nomenclature that I need to know to be certain I'm not getting a fisheye lens?

[Manfred M]

A fisheye will state that it is one. Fish eye lenses are primes lenses, not zooms, or at least I've never seen one that isn't a prime.

The one you are looking at is definitely a rectilinear wide angle lens.

[PepperT]

Thanks GrumpyDiver!

[Manfred M]

No problem. Nikon has two fisheyes out right now; a f/2.8 10.5 DX model and a f/2.8 16mm FX. These are way too much money for a lens I shoot with maybe a couple of times a year. I have a cheap (under $300) f/3.5 8mm Samyang fisheye lens that is totally manual. It is fun to play with. I picked up at Adorama when we were in New York City a couple of years ago.

[Polar01]

I have a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6, that I have used in the past on my Nikon D7000, and have gotten great images with no problems but one, to get no vigetting you have to shoot at 11mm. This is no problem as I shot 3 to 5 shots for a pan in portrait ordination instead of landscape.

Cheers:

Allan

[PepperT]

At some point I'd like to get a fisheye but not now. I'm just needing a wide angle for some work I'm doing for my son in his retail store. He'd like some shots for his facebook page. I think a fisheye would be fun to play with but I can't see spending the money they want for a toy. Maybe I'll come across a used one at some point when I have a few extra bucks.
Thanks again for you input, you were a great help.

[rpcrowe]

There are 8mm fisheye lenses available under the brand names of Rokinon, Samyang, Bower and Vivitar (and perhaps others). I suspect that some of these lenses are the same and are just branded differently.

I have one shot for which I would love a fisheye but, would probably not use it again after that.

I am not a wide angle afficinado and my 12-24mm Tokina is just fine for my needs...

[Steve S]

A fisheye will state that it is one. Fish eye lenses are primes lenses, not zooms, or at least I've never seen one that isn't a prime.

The one you are looking at is definitely a rectilinear wide angle lens.

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[AgfaB2]

A fisheye will state that it is one. Fish eye lenses are primes lenses, not zooms, or at least I've never seen one that isn't a prime.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc..._X_107_AF.html

Now you have


And if you zoom out to 12mm you can use it on a FF too. Not exactly 180 deg but still pretty fishy.

Cheers
Wolf

[Manfred M]

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc..._X_107_AF.html

Now you have


And if you zoom out to 12mm you can use it on a FF too. Not exactly 180 deg but still pretty fishy.

Cheers
Wolf

Perhaps I should have said, I have never seen a Nikon fisheye that is not a prime lens. I guess my mind was on Nikon lenses, as that is what Pepper was asking about.

[rpcrowe]

I don't think that this has been mentioned but, there are two basically types of fish eye lenses - those which produce a circular image and those which produce a full-frame image.

There are circular fish eye lenses for full-frame format cameras which, if used on a crop camera will produce a image across the entire frame...

[inkista]

There are circular fish eye lenses for full-frame format cameras which, if used on a crop camera will produce a image across the entire frame...

Well, close. You get black corners on a crop, in my experience. But you can treat it mostly like a diagonal fisheye.

But for those more visually-oriented, here's what Richard was describing:

Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG circular fisheye on a 5D:


And on an XT/350D:


See how much bigger a full frame sensor really is?

vs. a "diagonal" fisheye, which will cover the frame from corner-to-corner.
(Samyang/Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye on my Panasonic G3):



The main difference between fisheyes and ultrawides is that a fisheye maps straight lines to curves to achieve a wider field of view. A 10mm fisheye will give you a FoV that's wider than a 10mm rectilinear will, but the rectilinear will still be trying to represent straight lines as straight. There might be some barrel distortion, but nothing as extreme as the equisolid (or stereographic in the case of the Opteka/Vivitar/Samyang-Rokinon-Phoenix-Bower 6.5/7/8mm fisheye) mapping distortion of the fisheye.

[Scott Stephen]

Maybe I lack something in the way of artistic taste, but I have just never liked the fisheye effect. Weird for landscape and street, grotesquely distorting on portrait or candid people unless so distant as to be nearly anonymous.

[Colin Southern]

Fish eye lenses are primes lenses, not zooms, or at least I've never seen one that isn't a prime.

Canon do a 8-15mm Fisheye zoom.

[Polar01]

Just rent one, if it is just for some project in your son's store, and have him pay the rental cost for the lens as a business expense.

Cheers:

Allan

[inkista]

This is another weird idea, and possibly not suited for what you're thinking of doing, but since you mentioned that you actually wanted a fisheye and were planning on getting one in future, and that your need for rectilinear ultrawide was something of a one-off, you could defish in post.


Panasonic G3, Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye. Defished in Lightroom with a lens profile.

You do have to crop heavily (the original fisheye shot captured nearly the entire wall), but in a pinch, it can work.

Also, one more word on the APS-C Samyang/Rokinon 8mm (also Vivitar 7mm /Bower/Opteka 6.5mm/Phoenix/etc. etc.) that's been mentioned. It's a bit of an odd duck, since it does stereographic, not equisolid mapping (i.e., is slightly less distorted than your average fisheye), and is a manual lens. It has no electronic communication with a camera body, so you have to manually focus (usually not a big deal with a fisheye due to the extreme DoF you get out of one. Stop down to f/8, put the focus ring on infinity, and essentially everything from 3' away to infinity is in focus), manually set the aperture, and you'll be missing the lens EXIF information (lens name, focal length, aperture used). The aperture setting bit is where the weird side effects come in: you can only use M and A modes, and on an entry-level Nikon body, you will not have accurate metering, since the D3x00, D5x00, and D90 bodies cannot perform stop-down metering.

Just so you know what you're trading off for the $300+ savings you get on one. Optically and build-quality-wise, though, the Samyangs are good solid lenses, performing as well as the OEM lenses. But they are more of a PITA to use.

Myself, I'm a fisheye nut because I shoot spherical panos, and it's easier to stitch fewer images to form one if you use a fisheye lens. Here's an example of one of my panos, in interactive form (requires Flash).