Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.)

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.

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!

These are usually put on SLR's for filming but I bought one for photos and it is great! you know how sometimes the courners of fish eyes are black, this doesn't do that. If your close enough to any object you will see some, but minimal distortion. This is a shot I took with it and there is no distortion

http://www.flickr.com/photos/langdoncreations/6114048067/in/photostream I was standing about 3 feet away.

I use mine on a Nikon D90

Feels sturdy on Camera, one thing I don't like about it is I can't use the flash, it just won't come up when this lens is on. You have to buy none stock flash's.

Just received this lens in the mail today. It really is an all manual lens. It will only work with the 'M' setting on a Nikon. All the other settings will say "Lens not attached". It's a little bit complicated to understand right off the bat but if you have some experiences with ISO/aperture it really is not too bad. My only complaint is that the built-in flash does not work with the lens. You can go buy an external one, which I might do. If the lighting is good, there is NO reason this lens needs a flash because it's manual anyway...you can just adjust the settings. I just would like a flash for people-portraits in low lighting. Overall...great lens! Image quality is great. I'm going to love it.

Oh, and fyi...this lens is not a "true" fish-eye...the kind that makes a circle. So if you're looking for that kind...look at the other Opteka lens!

I bought this to go with my D90. It's full manual, not even the meter works with it. With digital playback thats o.k.. Decent for price if your looking for a budget fish-eye

I am by no means an expert with cameras but I must agree with a previous poster; This lens is a pretty basic fisheye lens. No zoom capabilities. Manual focus. I am also hoping they sell a filter for this particular lens because any photos I've taken in direct sunlight, or even snow, turn out practically white, even after many adjustments on my camera.
My suggestion would be to save your money and get the auto focus version of this fisheye. It may cost twice as much as this lens but I think it would be worth it. I sure wish I would have just saved up for the auto focus fisheye.