What's your appetite for an XF 12mm fisheye?

What's your appetite for an XF 12mm fisheye?

  • Yes; at the price range discussed

    Votes: 6 19.4%

  • Yes; pending performance proofs

    Votes: 3 9.7%

  • No; I like the 14mm XF lens

    Votes: 2 6.5%

  • No; not into fisheyes

    Votes: 16 51.6%

  • No (other).

    Votes: 4 12.9%
  • Total voters
    31
Dante_Stella

Dante_Stella

Rex canum cattorumque
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Apr 28, 2007
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I received today a sample of a 12mm f/7.4 fisheye in native XF mount. I believe this lens is already being sold for the NEX, with very minimal information about it availanle online. Here is some:

  • It doesn't have any electronics (probably never an issue since the aperture is fixed and focus is purely manual).
  • Focus is manual and continuous between two distances - 0.5m and ∞.
  • It has a built-in petal hood and does not take filters.
  • Body is metal, and the lens is made in Japan.

The performance, at least inasmuch as I could tell this evening would be quite good - very sharp at 100% with no chromatic aberration. I will be able to post some sample shots early next week.

The catch would be the spherical distortion (characteristic of a frame-filling fisheye), which is not always fully correctible (not unline every other fisheye). CS6's Adaptive Wide Angle function does an amazing job, but no fisheye can rewrite the laws of physics and geometry.

EVF seems to work fine with it. You would need to use the 10x magnification to really see how it is focused (DOF is pretty considerable anyway).

Uses? Traditional fisheye views, obviously; landscapes where there are few rectilinear points of interest; wideangle shots where you could live with the cropped frame that results from full distortion correct.

I'm guessing this would street in the high $100s/low $200s.

Thoughts?
Dante
 
Spyro said:
Doesnt Bower/Samyang/Rokinon already cover this?
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/searc...m&ci=17912&N=4196380428+4099560912+4261208139
Click to expand...

Interesting that B&H sells three versions of the same lens. I think the 12/7.4 is aimed at a much lower price point (maybe even half) and much higher durability. Given the very provincial nature of fisheyes, I would probably spend spend as little as possible on one provided that it gave me something usable. This product will hit production in November, from what I hear.

Dante
 
yes, the 12/7.4 is definitely interesting at this price point. Although I think at this point in time most FujiX users would be saving their pennies for the 10-24 and the 56/1.2 :)
 
I've got the fisheye on my antediluvian Coolpix 990. It's the real deal, 183 degrees job but you can zoom it out to "full frame". Even at 3.4MP, it can produce some interesting shots.
 
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