| Author: | | Senior Member Registered: August, 2016 Location: Irvine, CA Posts: 100 | | Review Date: December 11, 2016 | Recommended | Price: $200.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | sharp, build quality, handling, auto-aperture, starburst effect | | Cons: | manual focus (with caveat), size | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: K-3
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I'm no stranger to fisheyes - I have owned several fisheyes in at least four formats (Sony NEX, m4/3, regular 4/3, Pentax) and once the honeymoon is done, I usually get rid of the fisheye.
The Vivitar 7/3.5 may be the exception (though I am still in the honeymoon phase right now).
Manual fisheyes on most other formats tend to be problematic due to manual aperture control and lack of data from the lens, but with Pentax, the 'A' setting provides aperture control, so I can compose and 'focus' with the lens wide open, along with getting aperture data in my output files. This is a major plus.
The lens is sharp when stopped down - this is typically true of most manual fisheye lenses anyway. In fact, the optimal would be f/8 or f/11, but I've found f/5.6 to be perfectly usable, however, with a fisheye, I want the deepest depth of field possible, so I try to use f/11. I've found that with f/8 and up, I can easily achieve starburst effect with light sources, so this is a plus if that's what you're after. I inadvertently captured some starbursts below:
Now, as far as focusing, I lucked out and the focusing guide on the lens is accurate, though realistically, when the lens is stopped down to f/11, I can set any focus and everything will be sharp, but I do my best to approximate distance to subject anyway. Below, I think I focused to infinity at f/11, but did it really matter?
True, the Vivitar 7/3.5 is just a rebranded Samyang/Rokinon/etc 8/3.5 fisheye, but I actually owned the Rokinon 8/3.5 for another format and the build and 'feel' of the Vivitar 7/3.5 is significantly better. However, the Rokinon that I owned in the past never had accurate focus and I couldn't adjust the focus using the hack that's circulating online...
Downside - the lens is not compact, but this is expected. When I had m4/3, I owned the Samyang/Rokinon 7.5/3.5 fisheye and the 9mm fisheye bodycap lens and that was lots of fun - I could put my camera in really unique places (like inside my refrigerator) and get some awesome shots:
Similarly, the Samyang/Rokinon 7.5/3.5 for m4/3 (and it's identical twin, the Samyang/Rokinon 8/2.8 for NEX) were minuscule compared to the Vivitar 7/3.5...
However, my goal for 2017 is just to have a 2-lens kit with my K-3, and I think I'm going to keep the Vivitar 7/3.5 and the Sigma 50/2.8 macro as part of this kit. I'll sell the other lenses to keep me honest...
| | | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: September, 2010 Location: Hudson Valley, NY Posts: 2,626 | | Review Date: November 10, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $249.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Extreme wide angle, nice build quality, good flair control for the lens type (fisheye) | | Cons: | Not auto focus (may not be necessary!) | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 10
Value: 10
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This is my first venture into the use of Fisheye type lenses and the first thing I have to say is WOW! The second is, "these lenses can be fun!"
The Vivitar Series One 7mm is a Korean built manual focus lens in the style of the older Pentax "A" lenses. It has an impressive build quality with only the lens hood being plastic, which is solidly built to take some bumps easily. The focus ring has a nice grip to it and distance markings (ft & meters) are nicely indicated on the lens barrel. The included front lens cap covers both the front element and the lens hood, clipping nicely into the inside of the lens hood with a pinching action (pinch the two ears of the lens cover and engage into the detents on the inside of the hood). This keeps the cover on quite securely.
The lens hood is an absolute must for this lens as it also acts as a "bumber guard" for the front element, which extends out from the lens body a good 3/8 to 1/2 inch! Without it, the front element could easily get scuffed or scratch, so care must be taken when using this lens close to a subject. And as the mirror in the car states, "objects are closer than they appear!"
I have had the lens only a few days and started playing with it. As it is an extreme W.A. and a fisheye, the subjects for this type of lens must be considered carefully. However, anytime you want to accentuate perspective, distance or size (horizontal or vertical) this type of lens will do the trick. Although it indicates it is an aspherical lens, it does have the typical distortion expected from a fisheye, namely the non-rectilinear attribute that gives the fisheye its name.
Sharpness seems to be quite good to excellent with this lens so far. One curious aspect to the lens, but it might be fisheye lenses in general, when focused close (I went down to 1 ft, the minimum distance) and stopping down to a mid-range f-stop, the parts of the image further away are actually sharper than if I focused at 5 feet, about the mid-range of the focus swing. See the images taken shooting down onto grass. It was hard finding something WIDE enough to do a DoF or light falloff test!
Fall off in the corners does not appear to be an issue with this lens at all. No vignetting was evident. The images on the grass are good indicators of this. Due to the short focal length, you ALMOST don't have to focus the lens at all. I found it easiest to do a guestimate of the distance and set the distance on the barrel to that. As the details in the image are so small, generally, having a point to judge for sharp focus is difficult.
Overall this should be a fun lens to have. Keeping it in the kit for that special application, or bringing it along specifically when shooting city and building shots, will be a must. And for the price paid, less than some others I have seen, this was a great deal! Oh, but watch your feet, it is easy to get them in an image with this extreme W.A.!
For images of the sharpness and fall off tests (quick shots) and some examples of images done with this lens, follow this link to my "equipment" gallery:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/members/30743-bigdave/albums/2118-equipment/ | | |
