Zenitar 16mm for K1000

[nealjpage]

Do any of my brethren here at TPF have the Zenitar 16mm fisheye? What's your take on it? Where'd you get it? I found this on eSlay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-FISHEYE-ZEN...oryZ4688QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Has anyone ever boughten a lens from overseas? I'm kinda weary about it...

 

[Stratman]

Here are a few shots taken with a Zenitar 16 mm on an *istD The FOV will be even wider on your K1000 !! < I didn't take these, but figured i'd show you some examples > I've been debating on getting one of these too !!
http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-your-photos/5966-mr-zenitar-goes-washington.html

 

[nealjpage]

It seems rather inexpensive. I seem to remember someone once telling me that you get what you pay for.

 

[Don Simon]

I seem to remember someone once telling me that you get what you pay for.

Well... to some extent. You get what you pay for, but you don't only pay for quality, or even for quality control. Often for example you pay for brand name. With a Russian lens you are hardly going to be paying much for the name. Optically such lenses can be pretty good for the money, since they tend to be fairly basic optical designs and often "borrowed" ones. For example I have an 85mm f/2 which is great; it's basically a copy of a very old but very good Zeiss design. The downsides: it's heavy, it's stiff to focus, it's fully manual to the extent of having to set aperture on one dial and use another to actually stop it down. But optically it's very good. And it was a lot less expensive than even this Zenitar.

I would not feel confident buying such a lens from overseas though. Instead I'd suggest waiting for one to turn up on the auction site or on a buy/sell forum. You could probably find one in m42 mount, and then use it with an adapter.