Opteka 6.5mm f/3.5 Manual Focus Aspherical Fisheye Lens for Nikon D3X, D3, D700, D300S, D300, D90, D60, D40, D5000, and D3000 Digital SLR Cameras

by Opteka

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• ASIN: B002KMAWO0
• Item model number: OPT65NA
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 21, 2010

Product Description

The Opteka 6.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens is an excellent addition to any photographer's collection, giving users the ability to expand their creativity and capture incredible scenes from a truly unique perspective. The special fisheye design allows maximum creative expression. This lens, when used with cameras with an APS-C image sensor, creates images with an expanded perspective, including images with a creatively deformed outlook and a sharp pan focus that extends throughout the entire frame. By offering a 180-degree angle of view, this fisheye lens can be used to create amazing image expressions that cannot be seen by the human eye, such as exaggerated perspective and distortion. The minimum shooting distance (just 12 inches) and large depth of field also provide amazing close-up shots. Opteka's super multi-layer lens coating reduces flare and ghosting, a common problem with digital cameras and also creates an optimum color balance.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good lens in its range, October 25, 2009

By 

J. Li (USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Opteka 6.5mm f/3.5 Manual Focus Aspherical Fisheye Lens for Nikon D3X, D3, D700, D300S, D300, D90, D60, D40, D5000, and D3000 Digital SLR Cameras (Electronics)

Very good construction quality, metal focus ring, main body and the mount. with built in lens shade.
Extremely Wide on Nikon 1.5X APS-C bodies, can be used on the full frame body BUT cannot cover whole frame, the border of the frame will be black(not only dark). It has shorter focal length than other APS fisheye lens(normally around 10mm), so it produces less distorted pictures that more like wide angle but not fisheye. The distortion becomes obvious only at the border side.
Optic quality is just so so, but consider its prise comparing with other fisheye lens. It's acceptable. Because of the extremely short focal length, it is hard to manual focus when you what to use wide open aperture. (but if you use smaller aperture, such as F8, F11, you don't even need to focus the depth of field is wide enough to contain everything.)

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun on a budget, February 13, 2010

By 

R. Holen (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Opteka 6.5mm f/3.5 Manual Focus Aspherical Fisheye Lens for Nikon D3X, D3, D700, D300S, D300, D90, D60, D40, D5000, and D3000 Digital SLR Cameras (Electronics)

What can I say, I wasn't sure I would like this lens, but for the price, it was worth a try. I am impressed. It does what I want it to do for half the price of Nikon glass. It is a full manual lens, meaning you'll be playing with aperture, iso and shutter speed, no sissy auto exposure. It's also manual focus, but the in focus indicator works on my D90. Which past f/11 means the light is always on. At f/3.5 it's soft in the corners, but by f/8-11 everything is sharp from 12 inches to infinity. Also note, this is not a true fisheye lens where it looks like a sphere, it's more like an ultra-ultra-ultra wide lens where with careful composition you can make the image look almost normal or get in close and make some more creative images. Would I recommend this lens, Yes. It is something I won't use everyday, but for the price, it's worth it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lens by any other name..., May 9, 2010

By 

A. Pezzuto - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Opteka 6.5mm f/3.5 Manual Focus Aspherical Fisheye Lens for Nikon D3X, D3, D700, D300S, D300, D90, D60, D40, D5000, and D3000 Digital SLR Cameras (Electronics)

The Opteka 6.5mm Manual Fisheye lens may be the best master of disguise I have ever found. It is actually produced by Samyang, who market it as an 8mm lens, Bower, Falcon Polar, Rokinon and Walimex also have their name stamped on some of them coming out of the Samyang assembly line. Despite all of this confusion, I can see why everyone wants to claim this lens, Its AWESOME!

On a small sensor camera (1.5 scale factor) in portrait orientation the lens seems to capture 170 degrees vertically and 122ish degrees horizontally. I have read that if you use a 35mm sensor and shave the hood, it gives a 175-180 degree spherical image. Although there are a few better lenses on the market for this viewing angle, all of them are 2.5 - 4 times the price. There is minor chromatic abboration and vignetting on this lens, but if you shoot in RAW format they are easily corrected in photoshop's raw import plugin.

The only calibration testing I did on the lens I received was focal length testing, I found that my focus range was probably mis-calibrated, as at f8 shot by remote on a tripod the .35m focus was the most crisp for everything. Unless you are doing super close stylized shots, I recommend that you take a batch of test shots and find where yours is in focus, and leave it alone. The only other advice is expect to see your feet in a lot more shots!