Loyal Site Supporter Registered: February, 2014 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 2,710
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| | Review Date: April 28, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $25.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Close-Up performance, good colors, Inexpensive | | Cons: | Hard to find, Series VII adapters, soft corners | |
I've purchased several auxiliary ultra-wide angle and fisheye adapters over the years, all of them except one, The Spiratone Curvatar, have proved to be useless.
I bought my Curvatar for $25 including shipping from eBay in like new condition. I figured to use it on either my 35mm DA f2.4 or 18-55mm DA-L Pentax kit lens, so I sourced a 49mm and 52mm Series VII step ring from another eBay vendor for around $12 total. The results with the 35mm were not very impressive since the image loses the near full circle effect. On a full frame sensor camera even a 50mm host would render a circular 150 semi-fisheye view. Anyhow, I next used the 52mm ring to mount the Curvatar on my much unloved 18-55mm DA-L. BINGO! We have a winner.
Using the 18mm setting, the image is almost a complete circle and the combination produces surprisingly good results too! Color is saturated and true. Contrast is good. The AF actually works, especially in live view contrast AF mode and sharpness in the center is quite acceptable.
Close-up images are this combinations forte, centered close subjects are rendered quite sharply at apertures from f8 and smaller. Sharpness across the frame gets better at f11 and 16, however the corners are never sharp. Corrections in PP can sharpen and even out the image brightness and contrast to a good degree.
For the money, usually under $30, the Curvatar makes a worthy fun accessory if you don't own a prime fisheye. My result with the Pentax 18-55mm DA-L kit lens with the Curvatar have it permanently assigned to that former closet dwelling lens.
The linked images are all direct from the camera jpegs with no adjustments.
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