fisheye converter for canon??

MissB

hmmm... I have been reseaching wide angles and fisheyes non stop for the last month or so.. I reeeeeally like the artistic perspective of those lenses.. however the investment in a good lens is a stumper for me. I just learned about converter lenses.. which are obviously less substantial in cost. How about quality.. does anyone have experience with converter lenses? I have a canon 50D.. 85mm 1.8 and 50mm 1.8 ... thoughts and suggestions would be very much appreciated!! thank you!

missb

System

I bought one from a seller on Ebay two years ago. It was OK for black and white photos but color shots had a crazy green cast. I used it on a Nikon kit lens. Long story short, I returned it within a week for a refund as stated on the Ebay page. Two years later, I'm still waiting for my $65 refund. Here are a couple shots taken with the lens attached to the 18-55 kit lens.

MissB

I had a bower super wide 0.42x in my camera bag (not sure where it came from.. It think it was a free be with a previous lens purchase)... I attached it to my 85 and tried to play with it... the aperature had to be at 10 to get images that were even remotely sharp. Is that true for most converter lenses?? Or do I have a peice of crap.

Also there are two parts to this adaptor lens.. a macro lens that connects directly to my camera... and a fisheye that connects to the macro. Can I get an adaptor that keeps the fisheye..well..fisheye???

System

I wanted the look one gets from a true fish eye lens. What I got was a super wide angle piece of junk. Save your money and get a real fish eye lens.

MissB

Im starting to go back in that direction. It seems that if they were better quality.. I'd hear more about it.

Toshido

That question came up recently in the accessories forum.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=155284&highlight=diva


I had a couple VERY cheap converters from my powershot S3. I did some test shots and posted the results in that thread as well as a link to the full size images.

I think Divamum decided to try the Opteka branded adaptors, might wanna try talking to her and looking at that post.

DoctorIt

I just moved this over to the Cameras forum... Looks like Toshido is pointing out a thread in Accessories as well. I'll leave it to the gear boss to decide from here.

Miss B, come on back to the Market when you've narrowed down what you're looking for.

Village Idiot

MissB wrote:

Im starting to go back in that direction. It seems that if they were better quality.. I'd hear more about it.

Winchester, eh?

There are other option like Russian brand fish eyes and cheaper fully manual fish eyes. The problem with the convertors also has to do with the focal length. If you look, full frame fish eyes run about 15mm and crop fish eyes run about 8-10mm If you start going with longer focal lengths, the FE effect disappears.

And the price, although steep to some for a lens which people say you'll rarely use (I raise the BS flag. I use my FE a lot), is definitely worth it. I have a Canon 15mm f/2.8 fish that is just amazingly sharp. On my 5D MKII compared to a Russian Peleng 8mm that I friend let me use on my 30D, it's no contest. The Peleng is one of those cheap $250-$300 fully manual fish eyes, but it could never touch the Canon. Unfortunately Canon doesn't make a fish that really works well on their crop cameras. You would have to look to Sigma for that.