Until now I have to buy a fisheye lens never seriously considered, because although the exaggerated perspective is a nice effect, but also quickly bored if it is used too often. For my Pentax K5 normally be between 500 and 600 euros payable (Pentax 10-17mm or 10mm Sigma fisheye). But then I started to get interested in panoramic photography and just happened to come across the Samyang / Walimex Fisheye. The lack of autofocus, I see more as an advantage, according to the motto: What is not there can not break. In addition, the depth of field is incredibly important in this focal length range. At aperture 11 of approximately 30cm to infinity. You have to stop thinking about the precise focusing. The newer version II of this lens is optically identical to the previous, but has a removable lens hood (Geli). This is interesting for the full format. In the earlier version, the Geli had to "shave", will speak milled. Quite a final decision, which certainly had its drawbacks, if you wanted to use a camera with APS-C sensor the lens again. By design, the Geli holding not very much scattered light from, but without is just worse. With the removable Geli the lens is more flexible and can also be used on my old analog Pentax. The Pentax variant has a distinct advantage: Can only be made entirely manually with most other cameras, the aperture ring at the PK connector has an "A" setting and thus the automatic functions of the camera and the different modes for exposure metering are available. Well, with panoramic photos work you still in "M" mode, but a little extra is the "A" already. The build quality of the lens is very valuable, the stops lock into clean, but you can only set whole f-stop intervals. Even as I look back a little advantage in the "A" setting, because I can set the aperture on the camera in 1/3 increments. Distance setting has just the right resistance, not too soft, not too stiff for me. But most important is the optical power of the lens and that has really won me over. Of course there is the edge blur and chromatic aberrations (CAs), but which are absolutely acceptable for this class of lenses. In addition, the outer edge regions of the individual images are hardly used, so that the sharp core determines the overall sharpness of the panorama later when joining multiple panoramic photos. And the core of field is really very good. Restriction: The open aperture 3.5 you can safely forget it unless you want to use the Blur effect deliberately. In 5.6 the thing already looks a lot better and the overall quality is optimal at f 8-9.5. From aperture 11 already the diffraction blur makes then be easily noticeable. For a fisheye lens is actually surprisingly insensitive to stray light, as I expected worse. Sounds very enthusiastic, so why only 4 out of 5? One point deduction, there are specifically for my copy, not in general. I purchased the lens particularly favorable as returns on the cardboard pasted a sticker with the frightening knowledge "Damage". At first glance the referring only to the cardboard, at second glance, but also on the lens. Despite the immense depth of field, I could not quite focusing on infinity. Ultimately, however, had only 3 small cog solved and the focus ring can be brought into the correct position. Then fix the screws - done. If I can certainly do well in the workshop under warranty. But nice to know that my objective is also easy to maintain. A well-aligned copy would get from me directly 5 points. Although I could not perform comparison shooting with a Pentax or Sigma lens but contend on the basis of several test photos from the Internet that the Samyang / Walimex hide in any way and must be measured at the price the clear winner is!
