Nothing visible through viewfinder using manual lens.

madtonic · Jan 26, 2015

I just bought a cheap Zenitar 16mm 2.8 fisheye (Nikon mount) off ebay. I am trying to use it on a Nikon D750. When I mount the lens, I can see barely anything though the viewfinder. When I point the camera towars the television, I am able to faintly make out the bright lights of the screen. Oddly though, I have to angle the camera about 45 degrees up to see what should be directly in front of me.

I have tried manually changing the aperture from 2.8 all the way up and nothing changes in the viewfinder. I tried live mode and you can see on the rear LCD screen. When it takes pictures, the pictures come out proper. It is just that I can't see anything in the viewfinder. Here is a picture I took with my cell phone looking through the viewfinder when the camera is pointed at the tv. The lens is set to 2.8 ( wide open) and the ambient light of the room is typical of a normal living room. The barely visible light is the television. Everything else is pitch black.

I have zero experience with completely manual lenses so I am wondering if I am doing something wrong. I have tried changing settings on the camera, really the only setting that can be changed on the camera is shutter speed and that has no effect. If anyone has specific experience with these Zenitar lenses or with manual lenses in general and knows what I am doing wrong please let me know. Customer service is definitely lacking so I am trying to see if I can figure out the problem before I start claiming the lens is defective.

Thanks everyone.

Mr.Photo · Jan 26, 2015

If you turn the aperture ring with the lens off the camera does the aperture opening operate normally? If so then check the little aperture arm on the lens mount. That lever engages another lever within the camera mount which should open the aperture to it's maximum opening for viewing through the viewfinder. It sounds like one or the other is not working correctly.

pgriz · Jan 26, 2015

Could it be that the mirror is being blocked by some portion of the lens intruding into the mirror box space?

480sparky · Jan 26, 2015

Could it be due to a manual aperture ring? One that is NOT held open to f/2.8 then actuated by the camera to the set aperture. If you set it to f/16, you're looking through the lens at f/16.

Or as pgriz says, the mirror is held up by the rear of the lens. This is quite common with this type of lens on a FF camera.

KmH · Jan 26, 2015

16 mm is kinda long for a 'fisheye' lens.

The photo you posted is darker than what I see using DoF preview with a 24 mm lens stopped down to f/22.

What is the smallest lens aperture setting the lens has? One stop smaller than f/22 is f/32. One stop smaller than f/32 is f/45.

480sparky · Jan 26, 2015

Don't tell Nikon that 16mm is 'kinda long' for a fisheye.

F/22 is the minimum aperture.

petrochemist · Jan 27, 2015

KmH said:
16 mm is kinda long for a 'fisheye' lens.QUOTE]

For a cropped sensor perhaps but not for a 'full frame' fisheye.

madtonic · Jan 27, 2015

Mr. Photo... I believe you had it correct. I had checked the aperture previously and saw that it was opening and closing but I never played with the arm. I very unscientifically moved the arm back and forth several times and now it seems to work. Might have been that something was stuck.

For others that are interested this lens really isn't that bad. 16mm on a full frame is ok. There are only a couple lenses that are wider, none of those being cheaper. For the amount that I would ever use a fisheye, I can't see spending any more money than I did for this one. Also it does not seem to have an extreme fisheye effect. I like that. There is some distortion but it is not overkill. It will definitely get some occasional use.

Thanks for the help.

480sparky · Jan 27, 2015

madtonic said:
.............For others that are interested this lens really isn't that bad. 16mm on a full frame is ok. There are only a couple lenses that are wider, none of those being cheaper. For the amount that I would ever use a fisheye, I can't see spending any more money than I did for this one. Also it does not seem to have an extreme fisheye effect. I like that. There is some distortion but it is not overkill. It will definitely get some occasional use.

Thanks for the help.

How much "wider" can a fisheye get? Sure, there's the legendary 6mm that has a 220° FOV, but that's about it.

And how does a fisheye not have 'an extreme fisheye effect'?

madtonic · Jan 27, 2015

I have used a few other fish eyes before. One being the 8mm rokinon on a APS-C body. So it would have been equivalent to 12mm. In comparing pictures from both lenses there is definitely more fisheye effect with the 8mm. For full frame there is a 12mm Rokinon and 12mm Sigma (at least for nikon mount) that is wider than my 16mm.

I am not an expert with this but although many lenses claim 180 degree view from top left corner to bottom right corner. Each lens differs from its horizontal and vertical degree views and that can change things. This is only dealing with rectangular fisheye. There are also circular fisheye. They do provide 180 degree view all around but the image is a circle.

In my research on fisheye, the most informative and real world type reviews came from a blogger who blogs nothing other than Disney trips. Check out his website and he reviews most of the fisheye lenses available on the market and he shows pictures from around the Disney park. You will definitely see there that each fisheye lense provides a somewhat different effect.

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