Fisheye Questions

mattstarkeyphotos

mattstarkeyphotos

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Hey I was shopping for lenses and I'm thinking about buying the tokina 16-28 2.8 and the sigma 15mm 2.8 fisheye. I was wondering if the 16 end of the tokina has any fisheye distortion. Also is the fisheye effect only from the front element or is it from the mm? I have a fx camera by the way. If anyone has thoughts about either lenses I'd love to hear that too. Thanks
 
The Tokina 16-28mm exhibits a little bit of barrel distortion at the 16mm end, but all ultra-wide-angle lenses do. It's nothing like a fisheye.

Fisheyes have totally different optical designs to other lenses - it's not just the front element. It's not just the focal length either. For example the Sigma 15mm fisheye produces images which are 180° across the diagonal, but images from the Sigma 12-24mm are only 122° across the diagonal, even at the 12mm end.
 
StewartR said:
The Tokina 16-28mm exhibits a little bit of barrel distortion at the 16mm end, but all ultra-wide-angle lenses do. It's nothing like a fisheye.

Fisheyes have totally different optical designs to other lenses - it's not just the front element. It's not just the focal length either. For example the Sigma 15mm fisheye produces images which are 180° across the diagonal, but images from the Sigma 12-24mm are only 122° across the diagonal, even at the 12mm end.
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Ok so how much does the mm matter for fisheye?
 
lower number is still wider i think, wide angle lenses will give you perspective distortion
you can get cheapo fish eye lenses for phones, so you could buy a few and try them out, i have a 230 degree one thats amusing :)
 
mattstarkeyphotos said:
Ok so how much does the mm matter for fisheye?
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pingu666 said:
lower number is still wider i
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It's not quite as simple as that. All fisheye lenses are designed to give a 180° angle of view. The only real difference between them is the size of the image circle, which is affected by the focal length.

I wrote a blog article about this a while ago, and hopefully that will explain it properly for you:
http://lensesforhire.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/which-fisheye-lens.html
 
As already mentioned, a fisheye is completely different from an ultra wide lens. There are also 2 types of fisheye, one produces a circular image, the other completely fills the frame. I use the latter type, a Tokina 8mm F3.5 on my D7100. The Tokina's have manual focus, no issue as the DOF is so wide. They have a large curved front element with a minimal fixed lens hood, if you can call it that. Beware of shooting into the sun, or you'll have serious flare to contend with. They are great for close up portraits distorting the subjects features, or for use in confined spaces. You can also shoot hand held at very slow speeds, VR doesn't exist on these lenses. For most shots with the distance scale set to 1M and an aperture of F8 or F11 they create great images. Their fisheye distortion can be used to great effect, but you have to seek out images that benefit from this. If required, by carefully composing, you can produce a reasonably straight horizon other than the 'default' curved one. Some users report that the 'novelty' soon wears off, but I find continuous use for mine, I'll be shooting with it again this weekend. As you may gather, I love this lens, although it is certainly no substitute for an ultra wide angle lens.
 
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mattstarkeyphotos said:
What's the lowest mm for a full frame camera to get a full image?
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Fisheye or not?

A full-frame fisheye is 15mm or 16mm, eg Canon 15mm, Nikon 16mm, Sigma 15mm. I don't know why the Nikon is 16mm and the others are 15mm, but they all do essentially the same job and the image is 180° across the diagonal.

The widest non-fisheye lens is the Sigma 12-24mm. At 12mm the field of view is 122° across the diagonal.
 
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