| bigfoot125 |
| (newbie) |
| 01/07/2008 19:23 |
Fisheye lens-is it worth buying one?
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for an amateur is it worth buying a fisheye lens,i look on ebay and you can actually buy add ons for £30
are they wort it or best pay for the real thing
cheers
| sjaszczak |
| (A Real Gentleman) |
| 01/07/2008 19:55 |
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Re: Fisheye lens-is it worth buying one?
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Quote:
for an amateur is it worth buying a fisheye lens,i look on ebay and you can actually buy add ons for £30
are they wort it or best pay for the real thing
cheers
In all honesty, I consider fisheye lenses next to useless...BUT...that's only because I'm not in to that sort of photography.
Some people might value a fisheye lens highly...it's a "whatever floats your boat kind of thing"....so it's a little hard to say whether you should pay for the "real thing". They are a lot of money for what some people think is a "one trick pony".
Sorry, I know that probably wasn't very helpful!
| beejaybee |
| (Marvin) |
| 01/07/2008 20:02 |
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Re: Fisheye lens-is it worth buying one?
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are they wort it or best pay for the real thing
If you want to mess around to see whether you like the fisheye thing, it might be worth £30 for one of the adapters. Just don't expect much in the way of quality.
The proper ones are good, but very expensive for the amount of use that most people are likely to give them. OTOH if that's the sort of shot you want to take, and you need publication quality, there really isn't an alternative.
| El Sid |
| (Going potty) |
| 02/07/2008 09:42 |
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Re: Fisheye lens-is it worth buying one?
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I use a semi-fisheye adaptor that I bought a while ago. With a magnification factor of 0.42x it gives a fully circular image with my 17-70 when set at 17mm.
As BJB says the edge quality is not up to that of a true fisheye but if I keep the aperture down to about f11 it's not that obvious.
This is an example of the end result. It was taken hand held at about 1/8sec @ ISO1600 and probably isn't quite as sharp as it could be - I think the lens was my old budget Sigma 18-50mm so that probably isn't helping either.
For the amount of fisheye pictures I take it's difficult to justify the purchase of such a specialist lens - though I do wonder that perhaps if I did maybe I'd take more as mounting the the adaptor sometimes seems a bit of a faff compared to changing lenses...
One thing I will say is that while the edge quality is acceptable when creating a circular image it's hopeless for a full frame effect - far too much blurring and chromatic aberration...
| alanS |
| (Dr Dust) |
| 02/07/2008 09:49 |
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Re: Fisheye lens-is it worth buying one?
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Like others here I bought an adapter for about £30.
I bought it just to see what it's like but to be honest as I have a Sigma 12-24 it doesn't really go wide enough to impress me. Like El Sid I can get a circular image with distortion at 17mm (on my Tamron 17-50) but I've never used it yet for a serious shot, it's just been a toy until now but I think that buying it has taught me a little of what to expect and TBH it's put me off a bit as I think that if I bought a proper fish eye I'd only use it once in a blue moon.
I'd advise anyone who's interested to get an adapter for £30 and play with it before jumping in and spending hundreds on a lens that you might not bother with once the novelty has worn off.
| LargeFormat |
| (old hand) |
| 02/07/2008 12:27 |
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Re: Fisheye lens-is it worth buying one?
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Whether or not a fisheye is useful depends on what you want to do with it. I have a rectangular Zuiko for my OM2 and find it really useful for surveying buildings as I can cover a room in two frames. I expect to get one when I buy a proper digital camera. With software one can even remove the distortion. Astronomers use the circular image type, I believe. I feel that a stick on front element would be no more than a plaything so it depends whether you are prepared to throw the price away.
| beejaybee |
| (Marvin) |
| 02/07/2008 14:51 |
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Re: Fisheye lens-is it worth buying one?
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Astronomers use the circular image type,
When the idea is for all sky coverage ....
However the usual method is to get an old fashioned shiny chrome hub cap, place that on a level surface (with an electric heater under it to stop the thing fogging over) and place directly over it a camera fitted with an ordinary lens. The reflection gives all sky coverage with minimal blockage from the camera & support. You can get custom made shiny chrome "hub caps" that distort less than ex-Morris Minor types, if you can be bothered to pay the price.
| LargeFormat |
| (old hand) |
| 03/07/2008 11:53 |
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Re: Fisheye lens-is it worth buying one?
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When the idea is for all sky coverage ....
I didn't mean to the exclusion of anything else.
| Eru |
| (member) |
| 11/08/2008 22:46 |
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Re: Fisheye lens-is it worth buying one?
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I've used one to take photos that were used to make virtual/3D tours of buildings.
You take 5 photos (or 6 if you want the floor underneath) and the software (cannot remember the name) stitches it all together for you.
However if you really don't have a purpose in mind for the lens it is something of an expensive toy...