«

Anyone here tried this lens out?

I'm curious to know whether it becomes fully rectilinear as it zooms from 10
to 17mm, or keeps the same curvature for the central portion, or something
in between.

N.

On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:38:29 -0400, "Neil Harrington"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Anyone here tried this lens out?
>
>I'm curious to know whether it becomes fully rectilinear as it zooms from 10
>to 17mm, or keeps the same curvature for the central portion, or something
>in between.

It's always a fisheye, so your second guess is correct - the
centre is simply "cropped" as you zoom in, as with any zoom
lens. So at 17mm it exactly like any other 17mm fisheye
lens.


--
John Bean

"John Bean" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:38:29 -0400, "Neil Harrington"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>Anyone here tried this lens out?
>>
>>I'm curious to know whether it becomes fully rectilinear as it zooms from
>>10
>>to 17mm, or keeps the same curvature for the central portion, or something
>>in between.
>
> It's always a fisheye, so your second guess is correct - the
> centre is simply "cropped" as you zoom in, as with any zoom
> lens. So at 17mm it exactly like any other 17mm fisheye
> lens.

Thanks, exactly what I wanted to know.

Neil

"Neil Harrington" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Anyone here tried this lens out?

I did. Rather than forming a perfectly circular image like the original
"fish-eyes" on 35mm film, this one even when set at 10mm can fill the
frame, but with a lot of barrel distortion. You can correct that out in
software and get a reasonably rectilinear result, but IMHO the resultant
"drawing" at 10mm is too extreme while corner abberations are at an
unacceptable level. I was not happy with its sharpness even when stopped
down. After a day's test I returned it to B&H for a refund.

Since I like wide lenses, I had hoped this one could serve as an all-
purpose super-wide but found it far too much of a "specialty" lens for my
taste.

It certainly was considerably wider than my Pentax 16~45 F/4 (which has a
slight amount of correctable barrel but otherwise is quite rectilinear),
but not as good by any other criteria.

Try the 16~45, or save money and settle for a cheap 16mm Zenitar F/2.8
from eBay which actually seems a bit wider than the 16~45. Most Zenitar
owners are quite satisfied, and it de-fishes very nicely even for
architecture. The 16~45 is useful over a wider range, but also far
bulkier than the Zenitar, which at 16mm is already as wide as most folks
can go comfortably.

Charles Gillen wrote:
> "Neil Harrington" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Anyone here tried this lens out?
>
> I did. Rather than forming a perfectly circular image like the
> original "fish-eyes" on 35mm film, this one even when set at 10mm can
> fill the frame, but with a lot of barrel distortion. You can correct
> that out in software and get a reasonably rectilinear result, but
> IMHO the resultant "drawing" at 10mm is too extreme while corner
> abberations are at an unacceptable level. I was not happy with its
> sharpness even when stopped down. After a day's test I returned it
> to B&H for a refund.
>
> Since I like wide lenses, I had hoped this one could serve as an all-
> purpose super-wide but found it far too much of a "specialty" lens
> for my taste.
>
> It certainly was considerably wider than my Pentax 16~45 F/4 (which
> has a slight amount of correctable barrel but otherwise is quite
> rectilinear), but not as good by any other criteria.
>
> Try the 16~45, or save money and settle for a cheap 16mm Zenitar F/2.8
> from eBay which actually seems a bit wider than the 16~45. Most
> Zenitar owners are quite satisfied, and it de-fishes very nicely even
> for architecture. The 16~45 is useful over a wider range, but also
> far bulkier than the Zenitar, which at 16mm is already as wide as
> most folks can go comfortably.

If you want an all purpose super wide and don't have a Canon mount try
the Sigma 10-20mm, which is a rectilinear wide angle.

The Tokina is a fisheye, not a rectilinear wide angle--Tokina states
this clearly.
--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

J. Clarke <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> If you want an all purpose super wide and don't have a Canon mount try
> the Sigma 10-20mm, which is a rectilinear wide angle.
>
> The Tokina is a fisheye, not a rectilinear wide angle--Tokina states
> this clearly.

Tokina also offers a 12-24 wide angle zoom that IS rectilinear. I own this
lens and it is quite nice, but I haven't had the opportunity to really put it
through its paces yet.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: D281 77A5 63EE 82C5 5E68 00E4 7868 0ADC 4EFB 39F0

"Charles Gillen" <gillen@hisdotcom> wrote in message
news:Xns99029D3D7A27gillen@216.194.192.13...
> "Neil Harrington" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Anyone here tried this lens out?
>
> I did. Rather than forming a perfectly circular image like the original
> "fish-eyes" on 35mm film, this one even when set at 10mm can fill the
> frame, but with a lot of barrel distortion. You can correct that out in
> software and get a reasonably rectilinear result, but IMHO the resultant
> "drawing" at 10mm is too extreme while corner abberations are at an
> unacceptable level. I was not happy with its sharpness even when stopped
> down. After a day's test I returned it to B&H for a refund.
>
> Since I like wide lenses, I had hoped this one could serve as an all-
> purpose super-wide but found it far too much of a "specialty" lens for my
> taste.
>
> It certainly was considerably wider than my Pentax 16~45 F/4 (which has a
> slight amount of correctable barrel but otherwise is quite rectilinear),
> but not as good by any other criteria.
>
> Try the 16~45, or save money and settle for a cheap 16mm Zenitar F/2.8
> from eBay which actually seems a bit wider than the 16~45. Most Zenitar
> owners are quite satisfied, and it de-fishes very nicely even for
> architecture. The 16~45 is useful over a wider range, but also far
> bulkier than the Zenitar, which at 16mm is already as wide as most folks
> can go comfortably.

Thanks for the info. I already have the Nikon 10.5mm fisheye (the only SLRs
I use now are digital and in the DX format) and it's great, so the 10-17
would be somewhat redundant, but the idea of a zoom fisheye sort of
intrigued me. Your experience with unsatisfactory sharpness cools me on that
idea, however.

Neil

"J. Clarke" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote

>
> If you want an all purpose super wide and don't have a Canon mount try
> the Sigma 10-20mm, which is a rectilinear wide angle.
>
> The Tokina is a fisheye, not a rectilinear wide angle--Tokina states
> this clearly.

You bet. But what I was wondering was whether it changed to (or toward)
rectilinear as moved toward the 17mm end. That would have been interesting.
I already have Tokina's 12-24 and am very impressed with its quality, so
thought the 10-17 fisheye might be a fun thing to have.

Can't have too many lenses! :-)

Neil

"Thomas T. Veldhouse" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote

>
> Tokina also offers a 12-24 wide angle zoom that IS rectilinear. I own
> this
> lens and it is quite nice, but I haven't had the opportunity to really put
> it
> through its paces yet.

Same here. Now that we're finally getting some really nice weather here in
the northeast I'll be putting some mileage on the 12-24 very soon. Got it on
my D70s right now, in fact.

Neil

I can add my approval for the Sigma 10-20mm. For a lens that wide, the
distortion is minimal, a bit of barrel at the wide end and a bit of
picushion at 20mm. Since I usually use a superwide for the distance
exageration anyway, this plays right into it's task. There's a bit of
blue fringing wide open at the extreme corners at 10mm, but, if it was
ever visible in a real world print, Photohop can deal with that quite
nicely. The color is more saturated than my kit zoom, which was the
biggest failure of my older superwides.

I have no idea how it compares heads-up to the Tokina and Tamron
lenses, but the sigma is, by a very small margin, the widest angle of
view of th three.

Philip

On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:53:35 -0400, "J. Clarke"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Charles Gillen wrote:
>> "Neil Harrington" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>> Anyone here tried this lens out?
>>
>> I did. Rather than forming a perfectly circular image like the
>> original "fish-eyes" on 35mm film, this one even when set at 10mm can
>> fill the frame, but with a lot of barrel distortion. You can correct
>> that out in software and get a reasonably rectilinear result, but
>> IMHO the resultant "drawing" at 10mm is too extreme while corner
>> abberations are at an unacceptable level. I was not happy with its
>> sharpness even when stopped down. After a day's test I returned it
>> to B&H for a refund.
>>
>> Since I like wide lenses, I had hoped this one could serve as an all-
>> purpose super-wide but found it far too much of a "specialty" lens
>> for my taste.
>>
>> It certainly was considerably wider than my Pentax 16~45 F/4 (which
>> has a slight amount of correctable barrel but otherwise is quite
>> rectilinear), but not as good by any other criteria.
>>
>> Try the 16~45, or save money and settle for a cheap 16mm Zenitar F/2.8
>> from eBay which actually seems a bit wider than the 16~45. Most
>> Zenitar owners are quite satisfied, and it de-fishes very nicely even
>> for architecture. The 16~45 is useful over a wider range, but also
>> far bulkier than the Zenitar, which at 16mm is already as wide as
>> most folks can go comfortably.
>
>If you want an all purpose super wide and don't have a Canon mount try
>the Sigma 10-20mm, which is a rectilinear wide angle.
>
>The Tokina is a fisheye, not a rectilinear wide angle--Tokina states
>this clearly.
>--