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smirking

macrumors 68040
Aug 31, 2003
3,747
3,720
Silicon Valley
I keep thinking about thinning out my gear. But every lens has a job. I think my 10.5mm fisheye has been out with me about 2-3 times in 7 or 8 years!

I have one of those massive 150-600mm's. I'm not a birder. I thought I could figure out some creative uses for it so I used it as a walk-around lens for street photography one time.

PRO TIP: Do not do this. You will vault into the leading position for weirdo of the week. You might as well wear a t-shirt that says "Peeping Tom" on it. Everyone I ran into kept glaring at me and asking me what I thought I was doing.
 
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bunnspecial

macrumors G3
May 3, 2014
8,319
6,377
Kentucky
I keep thinking about thinning out my gear. But every lens has a job. I think my 10.5mm fisheye has been out with me about 2-3 times in 7 or 8 years!
Of all the lenses I've had, I actually had never owned a fisheye before about two months ago.

The opportunity presented itself for what was a great deal on probably more of a collector's piece-a Nikon 8mm f/8 Fisheye.

This is the old stye "invasive" fisheye, or in other words can only be used with mirror lock-up. It actually officially only fits a handful of Nikon bodies-basically the single digit Fs(aside from the F6) and the Nikkormat range of bodies. These are the only Nikons with real, true mechanical mirror lock-up.

Even better-or worse perhaps-for use on those bodies it comes with an external finder. This is a Nikon F era lens, and the F did not have an ISO standard hot shoe or accessory shoe, but instead had an accessory rail(with flash contacts) around the rewind crank. The F2 use the same form factor accessory rail, while the F3 used the same general design but just different enough that F/F2 accessories don't securely fit it. That means, practically speaking, this is an F or F2 lens(and really an F2 lens because of how weird MLU is on the F...) although there are adapters that let the finder fit either the F3 or a standard dimension accessory shoe.

Some brave souls will use these invasive lenses on a DSLR in live view, but you have to keep your wits about you.

They can come into their own on mirrorless, though, within reason. I have used the Fisheye on my X-T5, and it actually works decently well. There is no focus on this lens, but it's not really needed on an f/8 maximum aperture fisheye. Of course on a full frame camera an 8mm gives a 180º angle of view as a full circle in the frame with black edges. On APS-C it gives you more of an oval(full height, black horizontal edges). Of course too, no external finder is needed on mirrorless either.

Still, though, as I'm sure you know, fisheye lenses are incredibly different to use well. I've not gotten beyond the "Hey, look at how weird this looks" playing around stage.

BTW, I have another of these invasive lenses-the Nikkor-O 2.1cm. Mine is super early-probably 1959 by the SN. A few folks have used them on Z cameras, but I've not been brave enough to try on my X-T5. The rear element gets REALLY close to the shutter. In fact, it's close enough that there's an extra prong on the lens mount(that I didn't even know was a thing before getting this lens) that blocked it when new from mounting on the Nikkormats, as their Copal Square shutters were considered too "thick" and could potentially hit the rear element. I think the F3 is the newest camera it will properly mount on. The results I've seen from Z cameras, though, have been underwhelming. It's a known issue that digital, with the design of the microlenses, is very sensitive to having the rear element too close and can do crazy things. The 8mm fisheye is fine, although most of these effects show up at the frame edges where the fisheye is dark anyway. The 2.1cm of course is a full frame lens, but also sits closer than the fisheye, so using it on a mirrorless camera really isn't much more than proof of concept.
 

Apple fanboy

macrumors Ivy Bridge
Feb 21, 2012
55,304
53,114
Behind the Lens, UK
Of all the lenses I've had, I actually had never owned a fisheye before about two months ago.

The opportunity presented itself for what was a great deal on probably more of a collector's piece-a Nikon 8mm f/8 Fisheye.

This is the old stye "invasive" fisheye, or in other words can only be used with mirror lock-up. It actually officially only fits a handful of Nikon bodies-basically the single digit Fs(aside from the F6) and the Nikkormat range of bodies. These are the only Nikons with real, true mechanical mirror lock-up.

Even better-or worse perhaps-for use on those bodies it comes with an external finder. This is a Nikon F era lens, and the F did not have an ISO standard hot shoe or accessory shoe, but instead had an accessory rail(with flash contacts) around the rewind crank. The F2 use the same form factor accessory rail, while the F3 used the same general design but just different enough that F/F2 accessories don't securely fit it. That means, practically speaking, this is an F or F2 lens(and really an F2 lens because of how weird MLU is on the F...) although there are adapters that let the finder fit either the F3 or a standard dimension accessory shoe.

Some brave souls will use these invasive lenses on a DSLR in live view, but you have to keep your wits about you.

They can come into their own on mirrorless, though, within reason. I have used the Fisheye on my X-T5, and it actually works decently well. There is no focus on this lens, but it's not really needed on an f/8 maximum aperture fisheye. Of course on a full frame camera an 8mm gives a 180º angle of view as a full circle in the frame with black edges. On APS-C it gives you more of an oval(full height, black horizontal edges). Of course too, no external finder is needed on mirrorless either.

Still, though, as I'm sure you know, fisheye lenses are incredibly different to use well. I've not gotten beyond the "Hey, look at how weird this looks" playing around stage.

BTW, I have another of these invasive lenses-the Nikkor-O 2.1cm. Mine is super early-probably 1959 by the SN. A few folks have used them on Z cameras, but I've not been brave enough to try on my X-T5. The rear element gets REALLY close to the shutter. In fact, it's close enough that there's an extra prong on the lens mount(that I didn't even know was a thing before getting this lens) that blocked it when new from mounting on the Nikkormats, as their Copal Square shutters were considered too "thick" and could potentially hit the rear element. I think the F3 is the newest camera it will properly mount on. The results I've seen from Z cameras, though, have been underwhelming. It's a known issue that digital, with the design of the microlenses, is very sensitive to having the rear element too close and can do crazy things. The 8mm fisheye is fine, although most of these effects show up at the frame edges where the fisheye is dark anyway. The 2.1cm of course is a full frame lens, but also sits closer than the fisheye, so using it on a mirrorless camera really isn't much more than proof of concept.
I bought mine for like £50 so it wasn't much of an investment. But It's not one that i naturally think to put in my camera bag too often. It only works on a cropped body as I recall, and my D750 (FF) gets a lot more trips out than my D7100 (cooped body).
 

AlaskaMoose

macrumors 68040
Apr 26, 2008
3,505
13,363
Alaska
You can easily straighten out a fisheye shot shot with DXO as I vaguely remember.
Yes, some straightening can be done. And if using a Canon, the free Digital Photo Pro (DPP) can do numerous things. But DPP is not the easiest photo editor to learn. Every now and then the University Of Alaska and NASA post beautiful fisheye photos, including some that show space rockets launches with the auroras in the foreground. This is done at the University Poker Flats Facility in Fairbanks.
 
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Clix Pix

macrumors Core
You can easily straighten out a fisheye shot shot with DXO as I vaguely remember.
Ah, but for me the whole purpose is to shoot the fisheye shot specifically with that interesting complete circular shape or the more common 180° diagonal fisheye. When I'm shooting a fisheye image, it's going to show off that characteristic fisheye look! ! I have ultra wide lenses that I can use when I want something super-wide and with less distortion.

Yes, you can use DXO's PhotoLab and I suppose other programs, too, to straighten out a diagonal fisheye image if one wants to do so. Actually I have done the reverse; a couple of times I've gone into the "distortion correction" section in PhotoLab and deliberately created distortion in what had been a perfectly normal straight image, just to create something different and interesting... It's rather surprising what can come from a bit of experimentation.
 
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