Best fisheye for full frame camera?

[gregbradley]

Can anyone recommend the best fisheye lens for a full frame camera?

I am using a Nikon D800E.

Sigma 15mm F2.8 is often commented on, I think they also make a 10mm not sure if its full frame or not. Nikon 16mm F2.8 seems good.

I want F2.8 for nightscapes so the Nikon 16mm F3.5 would be too slow.

Greg.

[Poita]

The Nikon 16mm f2.8 AF-D is great for daytime use, no CA that I can see in my photos, but I would rent one to see how it goes at 2.8 for the type of nightscape you want to shoot. I haven't tried it on the night sky but for daytime use it is a little soft in the corners unless I stop down a bit.
Only noticable on large prints though.

I'd pony up for the 14-24 though if you can afford it. Sharper than the Nikon 14mm f2.8 prime, and is just an astounding lens. You will never part with it!

[Steffen]

I hear the 10.5mm DX fisheye works well and produces a circular image if you remove the lens shade (with a dremel or hacksaw).

(I'm not kidding)

Cheers
Steffen.

[LewisM]

HAD A Sigma 16mm f/2.8 for the 5D MkII. Severe vignette, (obviously intended for clip sensors), a little severe CA, SOLD it. OTherwise, a fantastic lens. I like the Sigma lenses.

[gregbradley]

Thanks for that Peter. I have the 14-24mm Nikon already and yes it is a fantastic lens. The Samyang 14mm is also a very good lens and is considerably smaller and lighter.

I was more looking for a fisheye to go even wider field most likely for time lapses like Alex's recent terrific time lapse.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

This lens is one I was considering. It does seem to be very good as does the Nikon 16mm F2.8. The Sigma 15mm F2.8 is the one I mostly hear good reviews about. The Samyang 8mm seems good as well but seems to be designed for crop cameras mostly.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

I don't like CA due to the need to shoot wide open for nightscapes and CA messes with your ability to get nice saturated colours in the rest of the image. Sometimes those remove CA features can wash out other colours as well.

The Sigma 15mm seems to do better here.

Greg.

[Poita]

The 10.5 for DX doesn't really work on a full frame.
See here:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/10mm-fisheye/images/examples/10-fisheye-on-fx-IMG_4287.jpg
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/105fe.htm

[naskies]

How about the Nikkor 6mm Fisheye? f/2.8, 220° FOV... perfect! ;) Here's an unboxing video and a demo of it attached to a D800:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zIDbw4gjunY#!

[Steffen]

You'll have to shave off the lens shade. Then you go from this:

http://www.virtualtourpro.com/Tutorial-pics/black-border.jpg

to this:

http://www.virtualtourpro.com/Tutorial-pics/Kitchen.jpg

Cheers
Steffen.

[axle01]

I have the 10.5 fisheye and i cut the hood off with a hack saw, i admit very carefully and i use it on my Nikon d3s, I've only used it once for night shooting when we had the Geminid meteor shower a few weeks ago.

[Steffen]

Cool! How did the shots turn out?

Cheers
Steffen.

[axle01]

Good enough for me, i took 270 - 30 second shots and even though i saw over 20 meteors i only got 2 in the shots.
I had a lot of light on the left from a suburb and on the right from the Townsville harbor, in hindsight i should of gone out of town or used a longer lens.

[astroboy]

Hi Greg
When we were doing the Eastern Fireball Survey we used Russian 16mm F2.8 which were quite sharp wide open, but since you have a 14-24 I wonder if a Circular Fisheye wouldn't be the go for a really different view.

Zane

[gregbradley]

The Zenitar 16mm F2.8? That's interesting.

Greg.

[Wavytone]

The best AFAIK is this little beastie http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2134426/Were-going-need-bigger-camera-Unique-10lb-Nikon-lens-goes-sale--wide-angle-itself.html

The next-best is http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/fisheyes/8mmf28.htm

Now... go take a look at the prices for one of those lenses... mind boggling.

You can use lenses - but there is a catadioptic solution if you want a fisheye view of the whole sky recorded in a circular image... this is especially suitable if you want a really fast lens - and I am sure most of you could make one of these.

Find a large convex lens - for a full-frame camera you will need one approximately 150mm diameter, the radius isn't important as long as it is really strongly curved like the meniscus of a Maksutov - and have the convex surface aluminised. This will give you a very good convex mirror. In my case I used a condenser lens from an old overhead projector.

Find a piece of board to use as a base (MDF will do) larger than the lens, paint this black and glue the lens on it, convex side up.

For the camera, if you're using a full frame camera (in my case a 35mm film SLR) the ideal lens is a 135mm telephoto able to focus at about 1 metre, the faster the better. For an APS-C camera, about 100mm, or 75mm for m4/3 body.

Make a tripod using 6mm clear perspex strips for the legs such that the camera is suspended over the convex mirror, pointing down at the mirror. The reflection in the mirror is a very nice fisheye view. In my case the condenser lens gave a 200 degree field of view - the whole sky, plus a bit of the ground too right up to the mirror. The reason to use the perspex is that it is sufficiently transparent that the legs will not be seen in the shot. With a bit of creativity I'm sure you could bend a thin strip of perspex into an arc to support the camera well enough.

If you are using a compact camera with a good macro capability you could scale the whole thing down quite nicely - a 60mm condenser lens should do nicely.

Even though the plane of the virtual image in the mirror is curved (at half the radius of the mirror) the lens combinations that I tried this with will have enough depth of field to give quite a good image.

The effective focal ratio of this setup is determined by the f/ratio of the camera lens. In my case, I was using Pentax Takumar 135mm f/2.8 and the image was beautifully sharp, and the image was equivalent to an 8mm.

Other aspects:

- the only downside is that the camera body will appear in the shot.

- you need to use the self-timer to trigger the camera, and run away to get out of the frame before the shutter opens !

- while it is important to keep the mirror clean, the focal plane of the virtual image seen in the mirror is located at R/2 behind the mirror. With a fast camera lens, minor dust on the mirror won't be in focus and should be so blurred that you won't see it in the image.

- with an effective focal length about 8mm the depth of field is huge - everything beyond the perimeter of the mirror will be in focus.

- dew may be an issue on the mirror, but since it is a thick piece of glass, the simplest solution is to warm it up a bit before taking a shot.

Even better - if you have a short telephoto lens that is even faster, say f/2 or even f/1.4, this will work too.

NOBODY makes an f/1.4 8mm fisheye... such a thing does not exist, unless you make one as per the above.