[Wiredbarbarian]

Hi there! I've been searching far and near and have had very little luck. I am looking for a functional, sharp fisheye lens between 14 to 16mm. M42 takumar or k mount would be fantastic, otherwise I'd love to get my hands on a Konica 15mm hexanon or 16mm Rokkor. Please let me know if you have something you might like to sell and email me with an asking price! Thanks.

[RioRico]

We need more details. Do you want the lens for a full-frame (FF, 35mm) or half-frame (HF, APS-C) camera? Do you want a 180-degree round fisheye that leaves a circular image within the frame? Or do you just want the non-rectilinear ultrawide fishy effect? This latter is much more attainable. I'm not selling my PK Zenitar 16/2.8 but you can probably find that (more likely in M42) on FleaBay. You also might go the the Marketplace here and put in a request.

[ILoveVerdi]

Support Pentax and buy the 10-17 if that will suit your needs =)

[nanok]

if you get the zenitar, no need to not get it in k-mount. it is a good lens, i am quite happy so far. i hear only good things about the 10-17 pentax, and it's not so expensive either, so be sure to consider it.

[Squier]

I didnt get on with my 16mm Zenitar , and so it'll go on Fleabay but i doubt if it will be economical for anyone outside the UK to buy it

[NaClH2O]

I didnt get on with my 16mm Zenitar , and so it'll go on Fleabay but i doubt if it will be economical for anyone outside the UK to buy it

Squier, If I may be so bold as to ask, what didn't you like about the Zenitar? Just curious, as I love mine.

NaCl(never leave home without it)H2O

[NaClH2O]

Another vote for the Zenitar. Not quite as "fishy" as the Pentax 10-17, but inexpensive and fun fun fun!

NaCl(the lens I use when I need to smile)H2O

[Squier]

Mainly because its not really a fisheye on a crop sensor. I knew this before i bought it of course, but tried it for fun. It seems more like edge barrel distortion.
I tried using it as a W/A but you have to keep correcting the distortion in that case.

[RioRico]

Mainly because its not really a fisheye on a crop sensor.

It's not a real fisheye on a FF cam either. I am now, this very minute, comparing the DA 10-17 at 11mm on my big K20D (HF) and the Zenitar on my little ZX-M (FF). They appear to have the same coverage and distortion. OP didn't mention his format, and did mention 14-15-16mm lenses, so I deduce he uses FF and just wants the fishy effect. The DA 10-17 is splendid but vignettes like crazy on FF. Bother.

For a full-circle-in-the-frame image on FF, the Peleng-A 8/2.8 might be the ticket, but I don't have one. Yet. (My Zenitar is PK, which is nice, as long as I don't need to resurrect an M42 cam.) For the full-circle, my Kenko (Hoya) fisheye adapter on a 43mm (HF) or 35mm (FF) does the trick, but it ain't exactly what I'd call super-sharp. Otherwise, to get full-circle on HF, a 5 or 6mm lens would probably be needed. In M42 or PK mounts, those don't show up too often on FleaBay. Bother.

[mikeSF]

i've been roving the marketplace here waiting for a DA 10-17 and recently missed out on two that sold for $300,but i was too late (congrats to you 2 lucky buyers, BTW)... those were screamin' deals for sure. Nevertheless, i just found one locally (craigslist) for $350 and have had it a few days without any opportunity to shoot some test pics.
I saw that forumite germar has (had?) a zenitar for sale - anyone scoop that up yet?

[stevebrot]

The M42 version lacks the M/F switch and requires a little minor surgery to enable stop-down metering. (Assuming you don't have one of those special adapters that depress the aperture pin.) Unless you want to take the mount apart, stick with the PK version.

RE: Not really a fisheye...

I use my Zenitar 16 on both the K10D and on my two Ricoh 35mm film bodies. On the Ricohs, the FOV is definitely 180 degrees diagonal. It is a challenge at times to avoid including one's feet and elbows in the picture.

RE: Fisheye distortion...

The curving lines on a fisheye's image are not due to barrel distortion. The distinguishing characteristic of a fisheye lens is a spherical image projection. This is true regardless of FOV or crop factor.

[stevebrot]

Most of your Pentax fisheye options will have been covered on this thread:

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/33549-fisheye-...ye-photos.html

Steve

[RioRico]

Most of your Pentax fisheye options will have been covered on this thread:

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/33549-fisheye-...ye-photos.html

Great thread! But before I leaf thru all 19 (at this moment) pages, the following leads to a question:

RE: Not really a fisheye...
I use my Zenitar 16 on both the K10D and on my two Ricoh 35mm film bodies. On the Ricohs, the FOV is definitely 180 degrees diagonal.

The question is: if by Fisheye we mean a 180-degree FOV, filling the frame (like the Zenitar on a FF cam or the DA 10-17 on HF), then what's the label for a lens that puts a full circular image on the frame? Is it a FullFishEye? The first image in that thread is an 8mm lens on a K20D and it's NOT a full circle - I think 5-6mm is required for FullFishing.

[nanok]

Great thread! But before I leaf thru all 19 (at this moment) pages, the following leads to a question:



The question is: if by Fisheye we mean a 180-degree FOV, filling the frame (like the Zenitar on a FF cam or the DA 10-17 on HF), then what's the label for a lens that puts a full circular image on the frame? Is it a FullFishEye? The first image in that thread is an 8mm lens on a K20D and it's NOT a full circle - I think 5-6mm is required for FullFishing.

not quite: by fisheye we mean fisheye (spherical projection, instead of linear, as mentioned above). it so happens that it is virtually impossible to get 180 - even "just" diagonal - fov with a linear projection (mostly due to physics, or one might say even due to geometry). this is why the concept of fisheye is often associated with 180. both the zenitar and the peleng (the 8mm you mentioned, i guess) are designed for a normal 35mm film frame. this means they are cropped on the aps-c sensors, so the peleng will not look like a "circular fisheye" anymore on the aps-c, and the zenitar will no longer be a 180 diagonal (so called full frame fisheye, because it fills the entire frame), the zenitar on aps-c becomes "merely" a very wide prime lens, with a (easily correctable, because it is not really distorsion, but honest spherical projection) fishyness to it, very compact, very well built (especially for the price), and pretty damn sharp i think, too. this is what i use it for (ultrawide on the cheap), sometimes i need to "correct" the sphericity, sometimes it works well for the shot and i leave it alone, other times it is impossible to notice it unless you've been there. to be very honest, the choice between linear and fisheye is choosing between two distorted renderings (linear is only perceived as more natural by most, but it is strictly not, and sometimes it is even perceived as very wrong), the moral of the story being, i guess: when you go ultrawide, you have to somehow project a noticeably spherical reality on a plane rendering, so no matter what you do, it will not be "right" (for a very known and easy to relate to example, think of map projections, any plane map of the earth in any projection you wish to choose will be distorted and wrong in one way or another, that's because the earth is "round", and the map is flat, and there's nothing you can do about it really)

hope this helps shed some light

[Squier]

Yup - nicely explained.

Now then - do you know of a free decent lens correction software ?

PT lens is good, but you get 10 shots at correction, then its kaput, or go buy it.

Adobe CS4 is what i use for PPing, but is there a lens correction tool in CS4 ?