Peleng 8mm Fisheye

[mysubaruimp]

With the recent rise in popularity of the Peleng 8mm, I thought it was time to post up some samples.

The lense is great performer and a boatload of fun.

The Peleng is soft wide open and lense flare is a big concern. Stop the lense down to f/8 and this all goes away. Using the lense at f/8 and smaller apertures leaves you with a very dim viewfinder. There is a ring on the lense to adjust for this. The "Lock - Unlock" ring. It basically opens the lense up to the widest aperture letting in more light. Now you can compose your shot and possibly check DOF and focus (the viewfinder on my cam is too small, but on a 30d, maybe). When you are set, a twist of the ring stops it down to whatever you have it set for (f/8-f/16 in my case). The ring is very fluid and easy to use.

At f/8 it certainly isnt the best low-light lense to have, but with a flash, its still very usable. With an external (430ex/580ex/etc) flash on the camera, you can only have it pointed straight up if you use an omni-bounce or piece of tupperware, err, I mean lightsphere. The flash head sticks too far forward in any of the forward tilted positions and causes flare on the lense. Watch where you put your fingers too. If you hold the lense without thinking of hand placement, you will get a finger in the picture, or a halo of light refelcting off of your finger. Please keep all hands and feet behind the front of the lense at all times, for your own safety.

The lense is full time manual focus, but it isnt really an issue. There is a focus ring with a distance scale on it if you need to focus closer than 1m. I use the ring and just guestimate at what distance the subject is from me. I cant see the change in focus when I look down the hallway that is the viewfinder on the 350d and I am not really sure that the focus ring does anything, but I still do it. I am stubborn. It has worked out so far, but with the massive depth of field this lense offers, I havent noticed any OOF areas of the image. This is not a good lense if you love bokeh.

You can use the lense in Av mode (what I use most of the time) or full manual.

On to the samples.

The first shot is just a snap from when I was messing around with things. The shot is straight out of camera to show the vignetting. I believe exif is intact. It is f/8 (wont show in exif). The second shot is a 100% crop of that image. These shots are both untouched, no sharpening, nothing.

[mysubaruimp]

Second set. Cropped images. My favorite subject for this lense is animals.

[KevNJ]

Beautiful boxer!! Oh and nice pictures as well. Maybe Ill take some pictures tonight of my boxer with my peleng.

For the ~$200 its well worth the money, or few bucks to rent it. hehe.

[nation]

Nice shots and review. Thanks for posting.

[MrsKitty]

Thanks for the review! This is the next thing on my want-list.

Who did you order from? Kiev via ebay?

[RianFlynn]

man what a great little find when you need to be wide!

Rian

[cjm]

What does this thing look like? or cost?

[mysubaruimp]

Kiev Camera is the only place that I am aware of in the US that sells them. Make sure when you call that she has them in stock. If she doesnt, it will be a long wait. I think there is only one in stock at the store right now.

As for looks, I dont have a second cam, so I cant take pics of it, but here are some shots online. The lense is all metal, and very rugged. These pictures make it look plastic.

Images thanks to http://www.pauck.de/marco/photo/stuf...g_fisheye.html

[BearLeeAlive]

This lens is one of the ones on my wish list, and has for a while now. It just seems like too much fun.

[buze]

It is a great lens, and not only for goof shots. I use it extensively now, especialy for landscapes.

[buze]

Of note also, the peleng peaks at f11 or so, so outside you don't really have to care about focus or even exposure : Sunny 16 applies. On a sunny day 1/250s f11 in M mode and shoot around

Also, if you take care to put the horizon right in the middle of the frame, and try not to have strong verticals on the side, it is almost impossible to detect a shot was taken with a fishy.

Quite frankly I love the Peleng, it's clearly in the top 5 on all the manual lens I got, I use it a /lot/ more than most of my expensive AF Canon glass !

[mysubaruimp]

Thank you for posting the above shots. They clearly show that the lense is capable of producing some fantastic images.

[superdiver]

I have SO got to get me one of these!

[ekie]

i must get one too! lol

how does the peleng compare to the MC Zenitar 2.8/16 FISH EYE Lens?

[buze]

The Zenitar on a crop body is barely fisheye...
The Peleng is more like a full-frame fisheye, on a crop. In fact there are slight dark corners that you can either crop, or reproject. In my case I "remap" the image to remove the dark corners while keeping the maximum amount of image.
See the kind of postprocessing you can do to Peleng shots to remove the fisheye effect, or to remove the dark corners : http://galleries.oomz.net/pub/M42/russian/peleng8mm/

I haven't tried the Zenitar, I would certainly pick one if I upgraded to a 5D!