Anyone and Everyone Who Owns a Fisheye!

nikitynick

I personally love fisheye shots when done right, but as with anyone else can only take them in small doses. Im wondering for those of you out there who own a fisheye lens, how often do you actually use it compared to your other lenses? Being a student I can't afford very many lenses, but after covering the basics I'm inching toward a fisheye, or at least a super wide lens. Thanks for the input!

ziggy53

A super-wide rectilinear zoom is much more flexible. You're right that fisheye lenses are a "spice" type of lens. A little at a time is a good thing.

hiroProtagonist

While I agree that fisheye shots when done right and in moderation can be a nice addition to your portfollio the ROI is pretty poor. I can think of a few other lenses at that price point that would get more use. I am considering the option of renting one for my next photo vacation.

kdactionphoto

Hey Nickety
I have a Nikon and the 10.5 Fisheye. It is a once in a while lens, but I do find things to use it for. My wife and I shoot Radio Control Car Racing. Usually I grab a shot from the drivers stand that encompasses the full track. This shot usually catches the sponsor banners along the backside of the track. I also do upclose of the cars while in the pits for detail shots. I find neat things to use it for. If I didnt the wife might ask why I bought it:D (joking)

InsuredDisaster

I just bought one, and use it for skateboarding. Being as I have a rather low rate of return anyway, I rather enjoy it for the shots that do come out. They are pretty good for low and close angles.



I've owned it for about 2 weeks and I've taken 900 photos with it. However, I use the sigma 10-20 a lot more. Its just more useful for more situations, especially being zoomable. I only use the fisheye for skateboarding and a few odd shots here and there.

hoghead

nikitynick wrote:

I personally love fisheye shots when done right, but as with anyone else can only take them in small doses. Im wondering for those of you out there who own a fisheye lens, how often do you actually use it compared to your other lenses? Being a student I can't afford very many lenses, but after covering the basics I'm inching toward a fisheye, or at least a super wide lens. Thanks for the input!

I have a 10-17mm fisheye and it comes in real handy for doing car and bike shows where you have to get in real close because of the people traffic. If you hold the camera just right you don't get a lot of distortion and a pretty cool photo.

hgernhardtjr

I use my 10-17 Tokina regularly in aircraft closeups, building interiors, bug-shots, etc. where I need the wide angle and/or its incredible depth of field.

And one bug-shot technique I use is to pop on the fisheye, stick the lens right up to the bees or wasps or mushrooms or whathaveyou, and get perfectly shot, perfectly focused, and at least half-decently framed superbly focused closeups without having to look through any viewfinder or use liveview. And I do not need to keep the fisheye effect if the results do not meet my expectations — so I often tightly crop and/or software de-fish the photos on an as-needed basis.

Fisheye lens shot results need not always be round and distorted with the software tools we have at our disposal nowadays!

chrismoore

I have a Canon 15mm fisheye. When I'm about done shooting a landscape I will usually mount this lens and take a few shots. Most of them end up being "a little much," and not keepers, but occasionally I will get a shot that just looks really cool. Overall a very small portion of my portfolio.

Village Idiot

chrismoore wrote:

I have a Canon 15mm fisheye. When I'm about done shooting a landscape I will usually mount this lens and take a few shots. Most of them end up being "a little much," and not keepers, but occasionally I will get a shot that just looks really cool. Overall a very small portion of my portfolio.

The 15mm fish is an amazingly sharp lens. Paired with the 5DII, being able to zoom in to 100% on a 30" monitor just blows my mind.

I use mine a lot. I even do portraiture with it. I have a photo up in the people section under "A shot from the ESP Strobist GTG" if anyone wants to check it out.

chrismoore

Village Idiot wrote:

The 15mm fish is an amazingly sharp lens. Paired with the 5DII, being able to zoom in to 100% on a 30" monitor just blows my mind.

I use mine a lot. I even do portraiture with it. I have a photo up in the people section under "A shot from the ESP Strobist GTG" if anyone wants to check it out.

you got a link?

Village Idiot

chrismoore wrote:

you got a link?

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=141127

chrismoore

Village Idiot wrote:

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=141127

Thats a really cool shot, need to definitely try the fisheye with people

rharris

Hi Nick!

I started fisheye just over a year ago. It was very hit and miss at the time, mainly because I wasn't sure how to use the lens or get the best out of it. When I started to get it right though, I really started to enjoy it. I was using a Peleng 8mm lens on an APS-C camera for a long time... I got lots of memorable shots out of it, but it gave me a lot of extra work because of (a) glare and (b) the corners were cut off, so I had to clone/stretch (or even crop) to replace them. I switched a couple of months ago to an 8mm Samyang lens - identical in usage but the glare and flare resistance is excellent and the corners aren't cut off (so just less work after basically).

It's very affordable too. Around 200 GBP brand new with 3 years warranty. Manual aperture, manual focus (no problem with SWA).

I carry it with me everywhere and never get bored of it. A lot fo the time you can't even tell it's a fisheye shot, it just very wide. If you're looking at a photo and thinking 'oh, that's another fisheye lens shot' then I suggest the photographer has probably done an average job with the camera/lens. If you get a fantastic shot, the equipment used should be the last thing you ask yourself.

I have a few fisheye shots in my gallery, some are more obvious than others, but I hope you find them useful: www.rharris.smugmug.com

Good luck!

ghinson

I have a naive question. I have a Tokina 11-16mm wide angle zoom that I use for a lot of landscape with my D90. I need to upgrade cameras and am looking at the D300 vs the D700. What will the change from a DX sensor to a FX sensor do to this lens? Will it go fisheye? It's not now.

ziggy53

ghinson wrote:

I have a naive question. I have a Tokina 11-16mm wide angle zoom that I use for a lot of landscape with my D90. I need to upgrade cameras and am looking at the D300 vs the D700. What will the change from a DX sensor to a FX sensor do to this lens? Will it go fisheye? It's not now.

The Tokina AT-X PRO DX 11-16mm is a reduced coverage lens, designed for the DX (crop 1.5x in this case) series sensors. On the Nikon D700 I believe you would normally set the camera for DX operation with this lens, giving around 5MPix in usable resolution.

It would not turn onto a fisheye because it is a rectilinear design, meaning that it has been optically corrected to project (more or less) straight lines from straight lined subjects.