The camera has a removable lens hood. That may sound unspectacular first, but is in fisheye lenses not a foregone conclusion. With most lenses, it is permanently installed and is not removable. The advantage of the removable lens hood is comfortable cleaning the lens. The downside, especially for its small size, the slightly less convenient installation. But who ever tried a Fisheye has to clean with permanently installed Gegenlichtblende know this feature probably very much appreciate.
Also the lens cap has in this lens other dimensions as you normally know. Since the lens is very large in diameter and bent outward, you can not just attach a lens cap as one would expect. Rather, this cover must be placed on the Streulichtlbende. This in turn means that you can not leave just like that disappear in the Gesäßtache, but should pay attention to any case bring them similar in the camera bag store, because this lens cover will lose under any circumstances. By outward bulge could have been otherwise very fast scratches on the lens.
Unfamiliar to most is probably the lack of autofocus of the camera. This means that you have to focus manually, the camera should therefore be operated in manual mode M. The manual with the focusing is not as bad as it sounds. In principle, you have to adjust the focus ring only for objects up to a distance of 1m. All that is goes beyond simply placed at infinity, so you should never really have a blurred image (unless you try to photograph something in the macro range.
The Nikon version of the objective way, a transfer of the EXIF data is possible. Therefore one must only set the aperture to f22. At Canon, Sony and unfortunately this does not at all.
The build quality is generally very high. The docking ring is made of metal, processed plastic is made of polycarbonate and makes an impression of quality and takes good. The focus ring rotates almost buttery soft and has low to no and no to weak resistance. It can be found directly behind the lens hood. On the ring distances from 0.2m up can be found at last, with a focus on more than one meter even at infinity. All figures are again to be found in the unit Feet / foot. Unfortunately there are no locking points-to-find focus ring has locking points at intervals of 1/3 EV steps except between f2.8 and f4. Due to the compact design, it is more or less to find right on the camera body. Both rings can handle very well.
As quite a few lenses with small focal lengths has this does not have optical image stabilization. But this is not really necessary, with a quiet hands, you can shoot pictures with loose a shutter speed of 1/4 second out of hand. For longer exposure periods, however, definitely is then a tripod recommended, if you do not want to screw it to the ISO value.
Image Quality
The picture quality is generally described as good to very good. What stands out immediately is definitely the high sharpness of the lens. She's just sharp, sharp, sharp. In this respect it gets from me and from every report I read on the Internet absolute top marks. The focal plane is a problem with most lenses with high focal length. In my Walimex this is close to perfect, so that the high sharpness continues well into the corners.
Even greater vignetting, at least on my EOS 600D, quasi not seem to notice. Also Ghosting is a negligible problem due to a well thought out design.
So a fisheye is difficult to assess with normal quality criteria. A low distortion and distortion is usually desirable and a quality criterion - a fisheye but often just bought because of heavy distortion.
It is also not true that generally distorted everything and is bent. If you have an object such as a long building in the center of the image plane so it looks quite normal. Only when you change the inclination of the image axis, the object bends and is distorted.
Here one should take trouble with composition, later finishing on PC is usually not to the extent possible, that could correct major errors still here.
For whom the lens is useful for?
The main reason for a Fisheyeobjektiv is the large screen size. 180 ° creates the object in the full format, the small picture have to add the crop factor, yielding, for example, comes to a Canon EOS 600D only to about 112 °, with 12mm is still a huge wide angle. When 180 ° maps, it always comes to barrel-shaped distortion, and zwarr not only at the edges, but already very close to the center - the so-called Fisheyeeffekt.
This falls differently significant. Photographed one faces up close you get very funny, distorted photos. Even indoors you can get a great deal on the picture, it all looks a bit squashed.
The nature and landscape photography, the effect is lost but then more and more, even for certain architectural shots, a Fisheyeobjektiv very suitable (eg ceiling shots of churches, large halls, etc.).
Especially for adventurous photographers who operate eg cave photography, this lens is ideal because you simply get a lot on the picture, it is very very sharp and evenly also relatively inexpensive. If they break no break 1500-3000 but simply well 500th
For astro photographers, the lens due to the large screen size is very appropriate. If you have found a nice spot you get a lot of stars and a lot of the great surroundings on the picture.
For macro photographers, the lens is less suitable. With a minimum focusing distance of 20cm you just get a lot of the area in the photograph, which is often not desired in macro photography.
In the area of action sports photography, it is a nice option to place this lens somewhere nearby remotely and so still always have the chance to capture as much of the action. Here again: If the lens damage has damaged only one of the cheapest solutions available on the market after all. And cheap is not necessarily cheap.
Conclusion:
Price Performance-wise, this Fisheyeobjektiv is highly recommended. It is absolutely crisp sharp and has a very good image quality. An initial aperture of 2.8 is very good and the lack of autofocus bothers a not at all in practice. You have the lens while in manual mode to operate, but as most DSLRs have a display for optimal exposure, this is a much smaller problem than you think.
A real Fisheyeeffekt one has only to full-frame cameras. On an APS-C camera can then only has a strong wide angle with a slight Fisheyeeffekt. It's a special lens, which is not suitable for all photographers, but that's probably apart from memory cards in any part of the photo equipment case.
Those looking for a good convincing Vollformatfisheyeobektiv should look at this lens definitely take a closer look
