How good MC Zenitar 2.8/16 FISH-EYE Lens are?

[Mikesht]

I read about this lens in Popular Photography, they do cover pretty wide angle and should work with my Canon 10D. But I would like to know, are they really sharp lens, would you compare them with an original Canon lens? I am considering buying them, but I need opinions first. Thank you much!

[oldlincoln]

I think this is the best $150 I have ever spent on a lens. I have done some experimenting and am very impressed with the optical quality. De-fished the horizontal angle of view is about 122°, fisheye it is probably 130 or 40 on my 10D. The build is less sophisticated than top german or japanese lenses, but seems hell built for stout. The multicoating on mine is very even, it looks great. The nice contrast this lens delivers seems to bear out the apparent quality of the coating. I also think that this lens is sharper at the corners than the other superwides I have owned (not fair really, they were rectilinear) Take a look at these fish and de-fish examples:
http://home.earthlink.net/~oldlincoln/_images/fish.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~oldlincoln/_images/defish.jpg

[EXA1a]

oldlincoln wrote:
I think this is the best $150 I have ever spent on a lens. I have done some experimenting and am very impressed with the optical quality. De-fished the horizontal angle of view is about 122°, fisheye it is probably 130 or 40 on my 10D. The build is less sophisticated than top german or japanese lenses, but seems hell built for stout. The multicoating on mine is very even, it looks great. The nice contrast this lens delivers seems to bear out the apparent quality of the coating. I also think that this lens is sharper at the corners than the other superwides I have owned (not fair really, they were rectilinear) Take a look at these fish and de-fish examples:
http://home.earthlink.net/~oldlincoln/_images/fish.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~oldlincoln/_images/defish.jpg
Sounds and looks very interesting! However, from your reduced image without highlights you cannot really tell much about the lens. Could you post, if possible, some examples with some strong highlights and 100% crops from the corners to look for color fringing, chromatic aberration, and corner sharpness?
--Jens--

[Cordell]

What exactly is defished? I assume that this refers to the use of the lens not giving the image the fisheye (round) look, but is this by way of actual lens adjustment or software image editing work? I ask because I would like a good wide lens, but I'm not interested in fisheye shots created with specialty lens. I rather do that kind of thing in PS.

Thanks

[Andy_T]

The fish-eye lens produces the distortion visible in the first picture.

If you want a 'normal image', you have to use a software like Panotools to de-fish (correct) the images.

Regards,
Andy

[Cordell]

Thank you Andy. I might have to get one of these lenses. I had the chance to buy a gently used one a few months ago for only $90, but I wasn't interested in fisheye anything. Now I regret it because I could have used it as a fisheye and adjusted to wide. Oh well.

[Mikesht]

Thank you everybody who answered. Mostlu I see a positive responces. But here are the links to some not so positive info I found:

http://www.jimtardio.com/zenitar.html
http://photonotes.org/reviews/zenitar-fisheye/

Just thought I should mention it here....
Thanks again!

[Andy_T]

Hi MikeSt,

I don't view these two reports as negative...

... one user compares it to a rectilinear lens and complains that it's a fisheye ...

... the other has HEARD of problems arising with a version of this lens equipped with a different mount ...

and they both don't like it being a full manual lens.

What exactly do you expect for USD 150?

Regards,
Andy

[bobcoss]

This lens is very nice for the price. I was impressed with the build quality.

I don't think it is really operating at 16mm on my 300d though because the screw on lens mount extends out the lens a bit. It seems to have almost the same field of view as my kit lens at 18mm so I havn't been using it much.

I'm planing on playing with it some more before coming to any final conclusions, but I don't think it is worth the investment for a 300d owner. It is a good inexpensive wide angle option for someone who doesn't have anything else in that range.

Focusing manually is painfull without a focus screen (and 40+ year old eyes).

Mine came directly from Moscow. Pretty cool.

Bob

[rdenney]

bobcoss wrote:
This lens is very nice for the price. I was impressed with the build quality.

I don't think it is really operating at 16mm on my 300d though because the screw on lens mount extends out the lens a bit. It seems to have almost the same field of view as my kit lens at 18mm so I havn't been using it much.

I'm planing on playing with it some more before coming to any final conclusions, but I don't think it is worth the investment for a 300d owner. It is a good inexpensive wide angle option for someone who doesn't have anything else in that range.

Focusing manually is painfull without a focus screen (and 40+ year old eyes).

Mine came directly from Moscow. Pretty cool.

Bob

If it focuses at infinity, then it is mounted the same way with respect to the film place as any other lens. You are getting a true fisheye 16mm lens.

Yes, it's hard to focus, but at least it has enormous depth of field.

Rick "who prefers the Zenitar to a Sigma 14, which covers about the same field on a 10D" Denney

[rdenney]

Mikesht wrote:
I read about this lens in Popular Photography, they do cover pretty wide angle and should work with my Canon 10D. But I would like to know, are they really sharp lens, would you compare them with an original Canon lens? I am considering buying them, but I need opinions first. Thank you much!

The Zenitar 16mm fisheye is an excellent lens. It is about the equivalent in field of view as a 14mm rectilinear lens, both of which approximate a 21mm lens on a full-frame 35mm camera. The wackiest part of the fisheye barrel distortion is outside the frame of the 10D.

You can remove the fisheye distortion using Panotools, but you can also use that distortion to good effect. There is really nothing less realistic about fisheye projection than rectilinear projection, except for the rendering of stright lines. For subjects that don't have straight lines, or for subjects where the straight lines can be composed through the center of the frame, the fisheye often works well without defishing.

Here is an example:

http://www.rickdenney.com/scratch/st_helens_zenitar_johnston_ridge_extreme_lores.jpg

Here's the same image at full resolution (but at a higher JPEG compression, so beware of artifacts):

http://www.rickdenney.com/scratch/st_helens_zenitar_johnston_ridge_extreme_hires.jpg

This image has been manipulated in Photoshop for printing, including USM, but it will show you what is possible.

I use it far more than I expected I would, and I already have a 14mm rectilinear lens. The Zenitar often makes better images than the 14. The fisheye distortion is for me becoming more natural looking than rectilinear, except for things like architecture.

Rick "a big fan of full-frame fisheyes" Denney

[Mikesht]

Thank you very much for such a wonderfull demostration. Nice picture.
So if I understand this correctly, this lens will act on my camera as non-autofocus 24mm lens on a 35mm-camera. Which is what I really want- a wide lens, not necesserily a fish eye, but a wide angle for landscapes and things like that- not portraits of course, I got 50mm for that.
I can get it for $140 right now including shipping, I guess it is not bad. Thank you again.
Mike

[rdenney]

mikesht wrote:
Thank you very much for such a wonderfull demostration. Nice picture.
So if I understand this correctly, this lens will act on my camera as non-autofocus 24mm lens on a 35mm-camera. Which is what I really want- a wide lens, not necesserily a fish eye, but a wide angle for landscapes and things like that- not portraits of course, I got 50mm for that.
I can get it for $140 right now including shipping, I guess it is not bad. Thank you again.
Mike

It will be more like a 21 than a 24 in full-frame equivalents. The fisheye distortion is definitely there, but it is manageable. I did nothing to minimize in the picture I showed. You can see that the horizon is a bit bowl-shaped, but the hump of the mountain hides that. Organic shapes (except tree trunks) are rarely straight enough for a little fisheye distortion to be a big problem. I regularly use a 30mm full-frame fisheye in medium-format work, and find that even working to the full 180-degree diagonal field of view, I can pretty easily compose around the fisheye effect by making sure things that need to be straight run through the center of the frame. Any line going through the center of the frame will stay straight, but that doesn't mean you can't crop the image a bit to shift that center point to something other than the center of the final image.

I also have a 14mm rectilinear wide-angle lens that, even from third-part makers (mine is a Sigma) is far more expensive than the Zenitar. I find the projection used by the zenitar is more natural looking for most organic subjects--even people. People in the corners of the image will still have round faces instead of the wide-angle distortions of a rectilinear lens.

Both rectilinear and fisheye projections are abstractions of the three-dimensional world that we perceive three-dimensionally. One approach is not inherently more valid than the other, depending on the subject. For treeless landscapes, I prefer the fisheye, but for trees and buildings, the rectilinear is more realistic.

Yes, the Zenitar is all manual, with no electronics at all in the lens. You have to focus the lens, stop it down to the aperture you want, and then the camera will select the shutter speed automatically (in Av mode). You can't use the auto-everything modes with this lens, but I never use them anyway so this is no deficiency for me.

I ordered mine from Kiev Camera, who has them with a built-in EOS mount, instead of requiring an adaptor for the original M42 thread mount. The price was only a few dollars more.

Rick "a huge fan of fisheyes" Denney