Customer Reviews

Opteka .35x HD² Wide Angle Fisheye Lens for Canon

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Previous reviews are mostly accurate. This is a bit soft around the corners, but it's also 1/10 of the price of a high quality true fisheye. I do like that it's pretty well built. It's at least solid and won't fall apart. I use it with a Canon Digital Rebel XS and it kicks out some pretty cool effects and decent quality pictures as well. The one downfall to me personally is that most of the cool effect of this lens is found near the edges, right about where the picture starts losing quality. But on that note I still believe it's money well spent to see if you want to invest in the higher dollar fisheyes. Even if you don't use it much you're still sure to get your money's worth out of it, so you really can't go wrong. I personally like this lens for reasons such as good quality pictures, good construction, and the ease of use. This is an excellent beginning fisheye and it's a lot of fun to use. Just make sure you keep it at 18mm or you'll start losing the effect, but it's easy to master.

I bought this lens converter a few days ago, and was very skeptical about it. I mean, fisheye lenses are usually extremely expensive, so what could I expect of a $29 lens?
Well, after playing with it, I have to say that I am quite impressed! If you are looking for some fun and don't want to spend hundreds of dollars, go with this product!

I have a Canon Rebel XS and this add-on works perfectly with my camera since there is a converter ring for a 52-58. I use it on my 18-55 lens and I can get some very nice images. If you stick to 18 especially, you will get the full effect of the fisheye. Obviously the more you zoom, the least the distortion will appear. Also, make sure you are taking pictures with plenty of light, otherwise your pictures will be dark.


So, for the price, I am really positively surprised and it is a fun little lens to play with! also, it comes in a little protection bag, which is nice and it seems to be well built. I was expecting something that would not be as solid as this seems to be. I'm very happy of my purchase!

This lens attachment does virtually that same thing as wide angle lenses costing $400+. For the amateur, this is all you really need. Little blurry around the edges, but clear in the center. Since I work strictly for the web (604 pixels wide), this gives adequate clarity, and it is vastly better than having no wide angle at all. Keep in mind this is a passive LENS ATTACHMENT, not a standalone lens. It screws on the front of the standard 18-55 lens that probably came with your camera (in my case a Sigma 18-50mm). The attachments is made for 52mm threads, but it comes with an adapter ring for 58mm threads (and a larger adapter whose size I forgot). Probably the only difference between various models of this lens (Canon, Nikon, etc.) is the adapter ring. Your original lens does all the focusing, zooming, etc. When you zoom out to 18mm, you see a nearly full fisheye circle surrounded by black (pretty close to a 180-degree view). When you zoom in, you essentially get a wide angle lens for everything below the 18mm of your normal lens. You have to learn how to use it (and learn how to use the fisheye correction feature in Photoshop or Corel), but there are huge possibilities. Shoot the whole inside of a Cathedral! And I actually like the blurring around the periphery, which gives an artistic affect. When my Sigma 10-20 wide-angle lens broke, I though I couldn't afford another. Now I kick myself for going without this cheap (attachment for so long!

If you're looking for the crystal clarity of a dedicated fish-eye or macro lens, then you will be disappointed with this. But if you just want an inexpensive way to experiment with a near-fisheye and a not-bad closeup filter for some creative shots, then this is a great addition to the bag at a bargain price.

Please note: this lens is an ADD-ON for an existing lens, NOT a lens itself. It has two parts, which screw together - the fisheye adapter and a macro filter - and then the entire unit screws onto the front of an existing lens like a filter. I use it attached to a Tamron 17-50 and the AF works just fine, although only with the macro filter screwed in between the lens and the fisheye (ie it won't AF if just the fisheye portion is attached to the lens) - YMMV. There are no included instructions so I'm not sure if this is how it's supposed to be set up, but it works and gives the desired fisheye effect. AF works fine with the macro filter alone.

Stopped down, pictures are quite sharp, if a little soft at the edges, but you need to be at f8 (f11 even better) or above; below 5.6 everything is pretty soft, but it can be an interesting creative effect.

The item includes both a 58 AND 67mm adapter ring - I wish they'd made that clear, since I bought an extra one which I didn't actually need (I didn't realise it came with a 67mm).

Listen, it's a pretty versatile little attachment. The macro lens by itself is quite useful, and works even better with a short extension tube I happened to have lying around. Good idea to work off a tripod or monopod because you have to get up tight ... and I mean right on top of your subject ... an inch. At that proximity, the slightest movement backward or forward will throw you slightly out of focus, creating the illusion that the lens is incapable of taking a tack sharp image at the focus point. But, I assure you, it can.

The fisheye befuddles me just a little. I can't quite imagine it can attain the type of images that they offer as examples. (Whole lotta Photoshoppin' goin' on up there?) In strong light, the lens is plenty crisp in the middle of the frame. Because the edges are soft, you'll have a hard time focusing and recomposing off center and keeping the subject in sharp focus. The sharpness of the images, however, in lower light is fairly lackluster, but that may be an asset. If one considers this lens attachment a "special effects" lens, things get cheerier. The included step down ring creates a nice vignette (although we normally do that in post production in the digital darkroom these days, which gives us complete control). Best of all, because things do get soft around the edges, overall, images can often tend to look rather diffused. I see this as a neat little "extras" tool for shooting babies, children and pets, and for some landscapes, especially if you are looking for a slightly "dreamy" feel.

One notable sidebar ... although the macro lens works by itself, the fisheye does not; you need to have the fisheye threaded into the macro lens to attain focus. Even when used together, you can get a good deal of up close work done, keeping in mind that sharp focus will remain in the center of the frame.

I will be honest, I am not able to get a really strong fisheye effect with this attachment ... but the only lens it fits for me is a 50mm prime lens. A lot of folks are saying you need a shorter, more wide angle lens to get more effect. For me, stepping down from a 77mm ring size (on my wide angle) to 52 (thread size on the Opteka) seems like asking for "super vignetting".

No worries, for thirty bucks, less than half the price of a good CPL filter, I'm keeping mine as a great little special effect and special event toy. It'll be great fun in between using my "serious" lenses. Have fun everybody, and remember that you get what you pay for, so don't expect thousand dollar results from a thirty dollar add-on. Just have some fun ... you surely ought to be able to get thirty bucks worth of fun out of it quite easily!

UPDATE: I've been using this product / attachment a great deal for a month now and I am changing my rating to FIVE stars. It's just terrific. I've really run it through the motions, trying extension tubes and filters (neither a necessity) and in various applications and I am all the more convinced that anyone who finds the product inadequate or unusable simply doesn't know what they are doing. As a macro option, provided you can get super close to your subject (like a small flower), it is JUST AWESOME. What an excellent, affordable and FUN option. Get one.

This is a very impressive lens add-on for almost any lens! Note that it is NOT a lens in and of itself, it must mount on another lens to work. It mounts on the standard Canon 18-55mm kit lens with the included adapter 58mm adapter.

It is a fisheye lens, but if you use it on the 18-55mm Canon on an APS-C (aka cropped) sensor and zoom to about 30mm, the black edges (technically vignetting, actually) will go away completely, and you will have a normal looking image (albeit somewhat distorted).

Notes
Image Quality: It is surprisingly good in the center, especially at aperture 8 or so, but is DEFINITELY extremely inferior on the edges. Probably substantially worse than any Canon, Sigma, or Tamron lens on the market. But it's not a big deal because with affordable fisheye lenses this is generally expected.
Macro: The macro on this lens is basically infinite. It will actually focus INSIDE itself. (In other words, it will focus on something even CLOSER than touching its front lens element.)
Build Quality: It is very sturdy and well constructed, and feels nice in the hand, though it WILL make your camera VERY front heavy.
Professional Use: Pretty limited, I don't see many clients wanting any photos I take with this lens.
Personal Use: Great! It's lots of fun and DEFINITELY worth $30 + shipping just to play around with, or to emulate old film cameras with lousy image quality.

All in all, definitely a fun lens, and without a doubt worth $30 if you want a wide angle/fisheye lens.

The macro lens part doesn't come with an adapter that will fit the Canon kit lens -- nothing about the product description actually mentions that. The Fisheye portion fits onto the camera nicely -- it's just impossible to get it to focus. Since the product comes with no user's manual and the Opteka website is equally worthless, good luck figuring this thing out. As a matter of fact, I'd love somebody to contact me and tell me how wrong I am about this product and give me a hint of how to make the thing work. Overall, if it wasn't such a pain to return items online I would have shipped this product back to the store the second day I had it. Instead, I learned a $40.00 lesson -- namely that you get what you pay for.

I was not able to attach Opteka fish eye lens to my canon. I messed around and could hold it and get a shot here and there... All I wanted was to try this out and take some fun pictures. (In no way am I a professional and cannot afford to pay hundreds of dollars for a lens.)
No instructions came with product.
Very upsetting.

I ordered two of them. Both had scratched glass from a design that puts the lens cap way to close to the glass. Be sure to check for that if you order one.

Nothing bad against the seller, the lens is just not the quality I was looking for. But what do you expect when you pay such a low price. But received product very promptly with no problems