Zenitar-M 16mm fisheye

[xiangji]

I'd been looking to buy a fisheye for my 40D but in general they are just too expensive. On the other end you have the fisheye lens adapters but I don't know how they perform, anyone have any experience with the adapters?

Anyway, I saw the Zenitar-m 16mm on ebay so looked at some reviews and on the whole they didn't look too bad. It has no AF and is fully manual...which is cool in an old skool way I guess.

I was wondering if anyone has one or has used one and wants to give me their opinion on the lens.

 

[Dwig]

I don't think you'll find it satisfactory. A 16mm fisheye will only produce the typical fisheye effect on a full frame camera, either digital or film. On a "crop sensor" body like a 40D you'll see very little fisheye effect.

 

[SrBiscuit]

i recently received a "precision fisheye" .25x lens adapter, going against some advice i should have listened to on here...and it;s very mediocre at best.
sharpness in the middle is ok, but much beyond that it;s horrible. it's a fun little toy that i will take out every now and then, but it's really not worth wht i paid for it.

as advised, i should have put that money toward my sigma 10-20.

 

[xiangji]

To be honest I don't like a "hard-core" fishy effect with all the black around the outside of the frame. I'd much rather have a weaker fish effect. Surely the 8mm full fisheye must be a nightmare to crop.... no? or maybe I'm missing the whole point of havign a fisheye lens lol.

I'm just after some interesting lines and enough fish to throw things out of proportion.

thx for feedback,

Noob out!

 

[SrBiscuit]

like you, im not a fan of the whole "looking thru a hotel door" thing...
so i got the .25x adapter, and i dont really take it lower than 35mm with the thing attached (thats when the tunnel starts). i really just wanted it for the width.

when i get home tonight ill post up a couple pics i took with it recently of an abandoned greenhouse. got some wicked poison ivy from the shoot, and didnt even get any decent pictures because i was using the cheap adapter.

 

[xiangji]

okies... I looked at some of the adapters but they didn't appeal to me much really. I can't imagine the glass and optics being anything special on them. That Zenitar manual looks a good bet to me.

 

[JerryPH]

To be honest I don't like a "hard-core" fishy effect with all the black around the outside of the frame. I'd much rather have a weaker fish effect. Surely the 8mm full fisheye must be a nightmare to crop.... no? or maybe I'm missing the whole point of havign a fisheye lens lol.

... then you do NOT want a fisheye, you want an ultra wide angle. That distortion look is just what I wanted when I bought my fisheye. I also paid a premium for that look.

Sigma 15mm fisheye on a full frame sensor:

Vertical:

Horizontal:

Once you get to know how to use it, it does some VERY nice effects.

Don't be sticking someone's nose 4 inches from the lens and centering it, though...

 

[Dwig]

...
Sigma 15mm fisheye on a full frame sensor:
...

If you are good at visualizing, you can see that while this 15mm fisheye gives a decent effect on a full frame sensor, it would not be very wide when used on a crop sensor body like the OP's Canon 40D. The 16mm fisheye he's considering would be slightly lens wide than the cropped section out of the middle of one of JerryPH's images.