 "One of my favourite lens" | 2010-03-14 |
| - Reviewed By Reinhard from Los Angeles, CA |
For those who think this is an Ultra Wide Angle lens. YES! IT COULD BE.... Just use Image Trend's FishEye-Hemi, and take the picture carefully PARALEL on axis, and there you go. Dont use rectilinear software adjustment (like PTLens, Bibble, Nikon Capture), it wont do the trick. Although those mentioned software can be alright for architecture or landscape, it absolutely can not be use for PEOPLE.
I DO use this lens for wedding photos with brilliant result. In a situation where the Cathedral is so huge with beautiful painting all the way to the roof, NO OTHER LENS can beat this one. Just use it carefully (alway take Paralel on horizontal axis), do correction with Image Trend, and crop to 70%. You still get an amazing pricture which is SHARP and usable...
I also like to use this lens on Downtown LA to capture the old buildings... Without this lens, its imposible to capture those building, since there is no space to backoff.... Again, Image Trend is handy.
If you know how to use this lens, it is a superb tool.
Hints: Be carefull, it is very easy for your finger to be included in the picture. It can capture 180 degree diagonal!
For reference: I also use Nikon AF-S 17-35F 2.8, Nikon AF-S 105 F2.8VR, Nikon AF-D 80-200 F2.8 among others.... |
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| "Great for panoramas" | 2010-03-12 |
| - Reviewed By Seeks relief in computing from Ontario, CA |
I use this lens with the Nodal Ninja R1 VR head to produce 360 degree panoramas with very little effort.
Nodal Ninja provides the non-parallax point for this lens so there is no messing around to find that.
I use Autopano stitching software to assemble the shots and like all stitching software, it does not like chromatic aberration. The vast majority of all fish-eyes have this problem to varying degrees. This lens is no exception.
So, you need to clean this up before assembling the panorama and Nikon's Capture NX2 knows all about this lens and does a great job of making that correction.
Bottom line: A great lens that plays well with others and takes sharp, very enjoyable shots. |
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| "Solid fisheye for the modern digital platform" | 2010-02-17 |
| - Reviewed By jjg from Chicago, IL |
As a longtime fisheye fan I found this a necessity when I moved from film to digital. First it's a full-frame fisheye. In the Nikon "G" lineup there is still no proper fisheye. The difference is that a full fisheye has 180-degree view all-around (or even >180 in some cases) in a circle that fits within the frame (leaving a substantial full black vignette around the image circle). These full fisheyes are mostly used in meteorology and surveillance.
The full frame fisheye is an adaptation with a longer focal length and a 180-degree view which circumscribes the image frame. Hence the 180 view is only along the frame diagonals. This also allows for some lens protection with a minimal sun shade blocking off the view that falls outside the image rectangle. These full frame fisheyes have a few other advantages. The longer focal lengths (e.g. 16mm vs 6 or 8 on the 35mm frame) requires no mirror lock up. And the full image is more detailed and flexible for artistic effects. Finally the center can be cropped out to give a fairly undistorted picture.
This Nikon G full-frame fisheye delivers a clear image with a solid build quality. Also the 10.5mm focal length gives the perspective I'm used to from 16-18mm lenses on the old film format. It does what a fisheye is best at.
1. Tight spaces pictures. In a small room or something like the Lunar Command Modue, this wide view is a must, despite the distortion.
2. Landscapes. It can give decent panorama shots with some cropping. Also in the great outdoors the lack of straight lines often hides the fact that the picture is a fisheye at all.
3. Fisheye effect. It has a sensual way of warping lines to give its own beauty. You can "look around corners" and get a "top of the world" perspective among other things.
4. Low-light. The short focal length allows the lens to be hand-held at 1/4 sec or even longer. At f/2.8 this is an exposure value equivalent to holding an f/1 lens for 1/30 sec (about the limit of standard photography). So this is the ultimate low-light lens.
Besides these standard fisheye features the Nikon G frustrates me with one drawback. It's really a feature of digital autofocus more than Nikon's shortcoming. Unlike standard and longer focal lengths the ultrawide and fisheye really don't need autofocus, at least not precise focus. Even wide open at f/2.8 the depth of field is huge. A lens like this is best focused "hyperfocally", meaning infinity is put at a limit of the depth of focus. Then at f/4 you have a focus around 6 feet to infinity and can shoot freely. Unfortunately this is impossible with the G-type lens because the depth of field markings we're used to on older lenses are just not there. Perhaps some system of pre-focusing could make up for this lack, but it would not be easy.
I suspect many long-time Nikon users make up for this by having a mixed collection of old and new lenses. So they can get precise focus with older lenses and quick responding focus with the new ones. Since I switched from another manufacturer I'm at a loss for hyperfocal use. With the fisheye, far more than any other lens, hyperfocal is valuable. So I wish Nikon had accommodated this. Otherwise the lens is a pleasure to use. And the standard focal depth of focus is adequate for most things. |
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| "Very fun creative lens and it has some practical uses, as well" | 2010-01-08 |
| - Reviewed By The Joy of Digital Photography from Stratford, CT USA |
I've had this lens for about a year (I use it on a D90 right now) and it's a lot of fun. You might think that you'd quickly get bored with such an unusual piece of glass, but the truth is that the more you use it, the more you start to see with this ultra-wide-angle perspective in mind. Everyone is familiar with the caricature-type portraits that can be taken with a fisheye lens, but they are also very useful in landscape photography, group portraits (read on to find out why) and architectural work. This lens is the equivalent to about 16mm in 35mm terms and because it's full-frame (and not the circular type of fisheye) it lends a very interesting perspective to many types of photography. The quality seems pretty good physically (it's small and light, which is nice), though it doesn't have the tough metal body that would make it more durable (and more expensive and heavier). But rather than go on here, I'll just quote from a recent blog posting that I wrote on my [...] blog (let's see if Amazon leaves in the rough address). I am the author of a number of photo books, by the way including: The Joy of Digital Photography (Lark Photography Book) and Exposure Photo Workshop: Develop Your Digital Photography Talent and Winning Digital Photo Contests (Lark Photography Book). Here's what I wrote on my blog, I hope it helps. If you can justify owning this lens, I think you'll enjoy it (especially if you get the $30 software I recommend below):
If you happen to be a Nikon DSLR shooter, are completely bored with all of your lenses and have (roughly) an extra $700 burning a hole in your equipment pocket, the Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8G ED DX Fisheye Lens may be just the lens you need. That's exactly the situation I was in when I bought mine and I have to tell you, as unnecessary as owning a fisheye lens is, it's still a lot of fun--and actually, there are some practical uses (just in case you need to justify owning it to a nit-picking spouse), though you may have to stretch the word "practical" a bit to find them.
The fun part first: The Nikkor 10.5mm fisheye lens is an ultra-wide-angle lens that provides a whopping 180-degree (measured diagonally from corner-to-corner) angle of view and that is far wider than even our own peripheral vision which is about 120-degrees. This is also what's known as a full-frame fisheye lens because it does not provide the cropped circular angle-of-view that some fisheye lenses produce. The result is a wild and distorted (but again, full frame) view of the world that can't be obtained with any other lens. Photos taken with this lens have a curved (bowed) distortion that, combined with the super-wide view, produce some really interesting and, I think, creative images. At the moment I think that Nikon is the only lens manufacturer making a full-frame fisheye and it can only be used on cameras with a DX-size sensor (D80, D90, etc.) and it can't be used on a full-frame DSLR body because it won't cover the field of the sensor.
Another side benefit of such a wide lens is that it has incredible depth of field--you barely have to focus this lens and if you shoot at a mid-range aperture like f/8 or smaller, everything from your feet to the horizon will be in sharp focus. In fact, I shot the frame here at f/6.3 and everything is in sharp focus from the bench that's about a foot from my knee to the far horizon. And, by the way, as you can see here, when you include the horizon in a fisheye shot you get a wickedly curved horizon line that looks like the edge of the earth (which, from where you're standing, is exactly what you're seeing).
OK, so now that you have yourself convinced you absolutely need one of these lenses, what are the practical applications? Because these lenses produce such a super-wide angle-of-view and because they have enormous depth of field, you can use them in tight spaces (like photographing your beautiful newly remodeled bathroom so that you can show it off to the relatives--you see, a perfect argument in favor of owning this lens) to provide very inclusive and very sharp images. You can also photograph large groups of people (like all of your wife's relatives gathered on your front steps--you can see where I'm going with this) without having to back up three blocks.
But won't these images be horribly distorted? Ahh, there's the fun part (oops, this is supposed to be the practical part): there is software available that can correct the distortion and leave you with an optically correct image that still retains the wide-angle-view and great depth of field. The Fisheye-Hemi Plug In from Image Trends ([...]) is probably the most popular and sells for just $29.95 and works with both Photoshop and Apple Aperture software. Once you've run the image through the software the curved lines and image distortion are totally removed. Neat, eh?
To be honest, as much as I wanted this lens, it sat in my camera bag and was only used infrequently for the first few months that I owned it. Since then, however, I've been carrying it with me everywhere and though it doesn't fit into every situation, it's a ton of fun to have around. It's also a tiny lens physically and will easily fit into a jacket pocket. So if you're hiking it around Manhattan and shooting with all your traditional lenses and then suddenly you run into your spouse's cousin in their brand new car and you want to show everyone just how cool and spacious the backseat is...hey, I'm trying to help you get a new lens here, work with me.
[...]. |
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| "Great for panos" | 2009-11-30 |
| - Reviewed By David Elliott |
Many people have reviewed this lens. I will try not to duplicate efforts.
This is a well built lens. It is so small that you might as well throw it in your bag. When you need it, you will be happy you did.
Most of the reviewers have treated this lens as a great way to get odd looking pictures (it is). Some seem to think that you should 'correct' the errors and get a wide angle shot (you can, but the results are not great). What I use this lens for most often is taking and stitching cylindrical or spherical panoramas. Three pictures and you have 360°. Eight pictures and you have a full sphere. If you do virtual reality pictures, this lens can't be beaten.
The lens has some chromatic aberrations, but the errors are minor for this type of lens.
I am very glad I bought this lens. |
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| "Great lens" | 2009-10-30 |
| - Reviewed By P. Guerrini |
| Great lens! I use it for 360 degree panoramic pictures with a Nikon D80, Nodal Ninja 3 pan head. Remember, this lens is a specialty lens with intentional fisheye effects. Don't expect it to perform like a "normal" wide angle lens. |
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Expedited Available
