[foxglove]

As some of you know, I recently ordered a Zenitar 16mm fisheye which promptly arrived in one province while I was away in another. Oh the torture! Well, I arrived on Saturday, and tore open the box as soon as I could. I spent a little while peering through the viewfinder at things around the living room, but saved the actual taking of pictures for daylight. The weather forecast for Sunday was awful, but it obliged with a dramatically stormy sky and the occasional rainbow (not nice enough to shoot, just fragments) so I went out to test drive the new lens.

First stop was Cranewood, the university (Mount Allison) president's residence. I figured it would look imposing shot through the fence from a low angle. It turned out not bad, considering the funny light.


Then out to High Marsh Road, and a couple views of the local covered bridge.




Facing the other way from the bridge, the sky was in the process of doing dramatic things over the marshland. I rather like the curved horizon in this one, but one of these days I'll have to find out about "de-fishing" software.


We had stopped on our way to a nearby eatery for breakfast to take these pictures (hubby knew I would probably explode if I didn't get to try the lens out!) and on the way back, the light was still doing interesting things. The bridge is out of the frame off to the left of this view.


None of these are great art, but the lens does do some rather cool things with the big skies we have here. I'm looking forward to playing some more. At least now I can stop twitching.

Julie

[Hawki]

Actually looks pretty good Julie ... How was the lens to work with, i.e. ... build quality, focus, smoothness, etc.?

[roentarre]

Very dramatic view and nice colour displayed. Great purchase!

[rfortson]

Nice pictures! The lens seems very sharp with nice contrast. Have you tried the lens correction settings in the Pentax software? I find that it easily corrects the barrel distortion from the 18mm wide angle shots of the kit lens, so it may take out a lot, if not all the distortion from the fisheye. Best of all, you should already have the software! Let us know how/if it works.

[shoey]

nice nice nice!!!!

you are really whetting my appetitie as its been two weeks since I've paid for mine, so it should be anyday now (did you buy yours from ebay's victor (aka "zenitar")?

I see that you have one of the better copies which didnt suffer from the infinity focus issue, what f-stops were the photos taken ?

[foxglove]

Actually looks pretty good Julie ... How was the lens to work with, i.e. ... build quality, focus, smoothness, etc.?

Thanks. It's a nice lens to handle - very solid. Focus is lovely - I far, faaaaar prefer MF lenses for the smooth, solid focus ring. Aperture ring seems a teensy bit stiff, but this may simply be because this is about the only lens I've bought new, and it'll loosen up with use. Certainly it's not unusually stiff, just stiffer than my old 50 and 28mm lenses. I was showing it to a friend this morning (he just got a K100D) and he was very impressed. His Polish wife was less so, she may not allow a Russian lens in the house!

It's definitely very cool that it says "Made in Russia" on the barrel. Too bad the Cyrillic is only on the lens cap.

Julie

[foxglove]

Have you tried the lens correction settings in the Pentax software? I find that it easily corrects the barrel distortion from the 18mm wide angle shots of the kit lens, so it may take out a lot, if not all the distortion from the fisheye.

Hm, that never occurred to me. I've never really used the Pentax software - I got the update, looked at it, decided it seemed as clunky as ever, and continued with Photoshop. But if I have a chance I'll try it - thanks for the suggestion!

Julie

[foxglove]

nice nice nice!!!!

Thank-you thank-you thank-you!

you are really whetting my appetitie as its been two weeks since I've paid for mine, so it should be anyday now (did you buy yours from ebay's victor (aka "zenitar")?

Ah, the painful waiting period! I suddenly noticed how many Zenitar pictures get posted here and at dpreview once I was waiting for one. And yes, I got mine from Victor. Which reminds me, I should leave my very positive feedback.

I see that you have one of the better copies which didnt suffer from the infinity focus issue, what f-stops were the photos taken ?

I didn't realise there was an infinity focus issue - shows how much attention I've been paying. But it certainly seems to focus fine at infinity. I'm not sure what f-stops I used, probably somewhere around 8 or 11, I never remember to notice, let alone write it down in the handy little notebook I carry for that purpose!

So will you be next with the LBA Zeni post??

Julie

[shoey]

My Zenitar has also arrived!!! First thing in the morning (ie now) I woke up and had a try. this is shot from the balcony at f5.6 at infinity focus

I'm not sure if my lens is the sharpest it can be tho. I feel that the McDonalds sign is showing a bit of softness

(Julie, heres the info on the problem i was talking about
Fisheye MC Zenitar-N 16mm f/2.8 Lens)