[deudeu]

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I am very curious to see what kind of pictures i can produce with the Zenitar 16mm fisheye, but not curious enough to buy it without trying it out first.

So far the only place i have seen those for sale is the marketplace of this forum and ebay.

Do you guys know of any stores in Montreal or the area that might carry them and let me try them out?

Thank you!

[pentkon52]

I am very curious to see what kind of pictures i can produce with the Zenitar 16mm fisheye, but not curious enough to buy it without trying it out first.

So far the only place i have seen those for sale is the marketplace of this forum and ebay.

Do you guys know of any stores in Montreal or the area that might carry them and let me try them out?

Thank you!

Not that i'm aware of. I bought mine off ebay from a store called rugift, i think it was.

Several members of another list had bought fromk them, so i felt safe. Took about 3 weeks via air mail.

It does a good job for around $160. I rarely use it any more, but sometimes.

Dave

[stevebrot]

I would add a caution about rugift.com. I have ordered two lenses from them, a Jupiter-9 85/2 and a Zenitar 16/2.8. The Jupiter-9 took almost a month to get to me and was packed loose in the box (no foam, no peanuts, just two sheets of crumpled newspaper) with no rear cap and was filthy with dust and a sooty black material. Fortunately there was no visible damage to the lens body or the rear element and with some effort all the filth cleaned off. Rugift customer support assured me that this was not their normal practice and offered me a 5% discount on a future purchase.

I took the bait and ordered the Zenitar. That was over a month ago but I still have not taken delivery. I have complained to the company that handles their credit card billing (they charged my card the day after the order with no concrete evidence of shipment) and to Rugift customer service. Rugift claims that the Zenitar is hung up in Russian customs, but they will ship another unit. Who knows how long that one will take.

The interesting thing is that Russian customs should have had no interest in this item since customs is concerned with items coming INTO the country not items going out. Personally, I think they are feeding me a line and simply have poor order tracking and order control. Actual shipping time from Moscow is a 12-14 days (I tracked the J-9 back using available shipping information) with most of that time spent in transit and U.S. customs. The maximum time should be no more than 3 weeks for an in-stock item.

So...if you don't mind giving the vendor a 1-2 month interest-free loan with no guarantee of delivery and also accept the risk of receiving the item in poor condition, Rugift may be a good place to buy. As for me, I think I have had enough.

Steve

[Gooshin]

regarding the lens: If full manual operation is okay with you, this is the best fisheye lens for the money that you can purchase for a pentax camera.

i honestly dont see how the 15mm Pentax can possibly be better, at any rate the double or tripple pricetag most certainly does not justify it.

and the DA10-17, well, really its apples and oragnes, with the DA you pay for the feature set and the extra field of view range.


regarding shipping:

my company deals alot with Moscow, our document shipment take between 3-4 days (DHL Express)

my mom sent me a set of documents about a month ago, using plain old russian post office, it took a week to get it into Canada to my doorstep

just something to think about

a month transit time most definetly shows a lack of organization, Russia, and most definetly Moscow is not as backwater as the world thinks it is

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Last edited by Gooshin; 05-12-2008 at 01:01 PM.

[deudeu]

I just really want to put my hand on one before i buy it.

I am pretty sure it is the best fisheye for the money, but i just really want to see one in real life and get a feel for it.

I mean, it is easy to go to any camera store and ask them to see a 16-45, but a Zenitar! I have never even seen anyone with it on their camera!

[heatherslightbox]

Maybe this will help:
Zenitar 16mm f/2.8 MC Fisheye Lens Sample Photos and Specifications
The page lists it as the M42 mount, but I don't think it would matter too much if you just want to get an idea of what the lens can do.

HTH,
Heather

[deudeu]

Thank you for your help all. I have a pretty good idea of what the lens can do. I personnally don't consider it a true fisheye on an APS-C sensor. But anyways, i like the sample shots i have seen.

What I really wanted was to see one, touch it, and possibly hook it up to my camera and take a couple of sample shots with it.

I guess the only way this is going to happen is if i pay for it!

[heatherslightbox]

At the very worst, you won't like using it, but even in that case, you can always sell it in the Marketplace and get almost all your money back, as I'm sure there are others that would be interested in buying off of you.

Here's a used one on Fleabay with a couple of days to go...
ZENITAR 16mm f2.8 FISHEYE FISH EYE LENS - PENTAX K - eBay (item 260238455534 end time May-15-08 09:17:56 PDT)

...or you can BIN:
MC Zenitar 16/2.8 Fish Eye 16mm Auto new for Pentax K - eBay (item 170179826758 end time May-17-08 08:02:27 PDT)

You can always post a WTB thread in the Marketplace section if you'd rather not deal with Fleabay.

Heather

[PeterAM]

I bought a Zenitar about two years ago; at that time it was $125. It was a good buy and produces surprisingly good pictures, for what it is. I used it a few times on my DS and then consigned it to the bag with the film bodies. It's more fun (for me) to use it to shoot film, as you get the true 16mm effect. I only like the fisheye effect for occasional use and now use a Sigma 10-20mm for wide shots on the DS/K10D. If you go through/search the pictures on this site you'll find a bunch posted by NA2CL (might not have this right;been a long time since HS chemistry).
Search DPReview for Zenitar; there's a lot of info there. Most of the people (myself included) there bought it from one vendor (Victor?) that was very dependable. You will come up with that in the search.

[Gooshin]

here if you want i will ship it to you from Toronto, you pay shipping and handling, i'm currently testing my sigma so you can go nuts with it.

[pentkon52]

Rugift was up front about the wait time. I was told 3-6 weeks, via air mail.

It arrived in three, so i was happy.:-)

Dave

[NaClH2O]

I just really want to put my hand on one before i buy it.

I am pretty sure it is the best fisheye for the money, but i just really want to see one in real life and get a feel for it.

I mean, it is easy to go to any camera store and ask them to see a 16-45, but a Zenitar! I have never even seen anyone with it on their camera!

It is a very small lens, but very well built. Quite heavy for it's size. It is a little over 6 cm mounted on the camera. It comes with an internal filter set, as with most all FE's there are no screw on filters. It flares alot, and it is very soft at 2.8, I don't feen the lens is usuable till about 3.5 or so. The sweet spot is about 6.3 or 8.0. But it is a very "fun" lens. I use it fairly frequently. Since the "fish eye" distortion isn't very pronounced, you can almost completely avoid it with careful composition and framing. It is a great "bang for the buck" lens.

NaCl(something fishy around here)H2O

[deudeu]

here if you want i will ship it to you from Toronto, you pay shipping and handling, i'm currently testing my sigma so you can go nuts with it.

Thank you very much for the offer, but it would cost me at least $20 for a test. If i do that three times i can buy and old M lens. If i ever stop by toronto i will defenetly get a hold of you though.

[deudeu]

It flares alot, and it is very soft at 2.8, I don't feen the lens is usuable till about 3.5 or so. The sweet spot is about 6.3 or 8.0. But it is a very "fun" lens. I use it fairly frequently. Since the "fish eye" distortion isn't very pronounced, you can almost completely avoid it with careful composition and framing. It is a great "bang for the buck" lens.

NaCl(something fishy around here)H2O

I am also going to have to buy a good walkaround zoom to upgrade the kit. If what you say is true, which i am sure it is, won't a sigma 17-70 be just as good?

[stevebrot]

I would add a caution about rugift.com. I have ordered two lenses from them, a Jupiter-9 85/2 and a Zenitar 16/2.8. The Jupiter-9 took almost a month to get to me and was packed loose in the box (no foam, no peanuts, just two sheets of crumpled newspaper) with no rear cap and was filthy with dust and a sooty black material. Fortunately there was no visible damage to the lens body or the rear element and with some effort all the filth cleaned off. Rugift customer support assured me that this was not their normal practice and offered me a 5% discount on a future purchase.

I took the bait and ordered the Zenitar. That was over a month ago but I still have not taken delivery. I have complained to the company that handles their credit card billing (they charged my card the day after the order with no concrete evidence of shipment) and to Rugift customer service. Rugift claims that the Zenitar is hung up in Russian customs, but they will ship another unit. Who knows how long that one will take.

The interesting thing is that Russian customs should have had no interest in this item since customs is concerned with items coming INTO the country not items going out. Personally, I think they are feeding me a line and simply have poor order tracking and order control. Actual shipping time from Moscow is a 12-14 days (I tracked the J-9 back using available shipping information) with most of that time spent in transit and U.S. customs. The maximum time should be no more than 3 weeks for an in-stock item.

So...if you don't mind giving the vendor a 1-2 month interest-free loan with no guarantee of delivery and also accept the risk of receiving the item in poor condition, Rugift may be a good place to buy. As for me, I think I have had enough.

Steve

Update:
I finally received the Zenitar about a week ago. The box and the lens both appeared to be in good shape until I checked out the basic lens functions. Both the aperture mechanism and focus ring are defective. The aperture stop-down sticks and does not function reliably and the focus ring binds as it approaches its near focus range. Bummer...I seriously suspect that the lens was dropped in production and somehow slipped through QA.

I contacted Rugift.com and they have instructed me to ship the lens (at my expense) back to Russia where they will inspect with the option to repair/replace. If deemed defective, they have promised to credit me my shipping expense. So, if all goes well, I might be using my lens sometime in August.

Oh, well...