Home

Please support mflenses.com if you need any graphic related work order it from us, click on above banner to order!
SearchSearch MemberlistMemberlist RegisterRegister ProfileProfile Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages Log inLog in

Fish-Eye vs. Rectilinear corrected Ultra-Wide
Post new topic   Reply to topic
Home   Manual Focus Lenses
View previous topic :: View next topic  


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 10:13 am    Post subject: Fish-Eye vs. Rectilinear corrected Ultra-Wide Reply with quote
Out of curiosity I did a comparison between my Pentax SMC Fish-Eye 17/4 on Sony A850 FF vs. CV 12/5.6 Ultra-Wide rectilinear corrected lens on Ricoh GXR-M APS-C (resulting in 18mm FOV on FF).
The perspectives have been the same for both pictures, i.e. the tripod wasn't moved.
I've tried as much as I could to get rid of the field curvature of the fish-eye lens in Adobe Camera Raw, however it wasn't possible to get a similar "correct" picture comparable to the CV lens.
Still the 17mm lens delivered a slightly broader FOV than the "18mm" lens, but that's the only advantage of the fish-eye.
I'd previously planned also to include the 8mm fish-eye on MFT which would result in 16mm FOV, but as this lens is even more extreme than the Takumar I skipped it finally.
For me it's once again a proof that I don't like fish-eye lenses.
The only interesting aspect was that the sharpness for both pictures was comparable good, i.e. usable from edge to edge. There was no smearing or color shift whatsoever. However, the colors from the two different cameras turned out to be different as usual (that's nothing new for me), most probably based on different WB algorithms. I didn't spend my energy to correct that afterwards.

Super-Multi-Coated FISH-EYE-TAKUMAR 17mm/4 on Sony A850 (F8 ):


Voigtländer Ultra-Wide 12mm/5.6 on Ricoh GXR-M (F5.6):


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
In my opinion if you're treating a fisheye as if it was just a very wide rectilinear lens, you're using it wrong. A fisheye is a special purpose lens and needs to be used properly. Comparing a regular UWA with a fisheye doesn't make sense, they're two very different things even if the focal length is similar.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
miran wrote:
In my opinion if you're treating a fisheye as if it was just a very wide rectilinear lens, you're using it wrong. A fisheye is a special purpose lens and needs to be used properly. Comparing a regular UWA with a fisheye doesn't make sense, they're two very different things even if the focal length is similar.


Maybe you are right. Nevertheless, I don't like the special effect of a fish-eye lens and tried to get rid of it during post processing. It failed anyway. Wink

I should rather sell my fish-eye lenses as I don't use them at all and look for something which might make more sense for me.

At the end of the day it's purely a matter of taste and as we all know: Tastes use to be different, there is no need to argue about that. Wink


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
One more thing. Regarding the field of view and which is wider, there's no true answer. The UWA could be wider from side to side but the fisheye with the same FL is wider from corner to corner.

And if you try to use a fisheye as a UWA, you can do that only if you put the horizon right in the middle of the frame and that's very limiting.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
miran wrote:

And if you try to use a fisheye as a UWA, you can do that only if you put the horizon right in the middle of the frame and that's very limiting.


But that's exactly what I've done.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 12:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I know, I'm just saying this is a big limitation of fisheye lenses.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 12:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
A fisheye simply can't be used as a 'normal' UWA; end of story.

Yes, software can correct distortion to a degree, but the way a fisheye projects is just too much to be corrected fully.

Old manual lenses wider than 24mm are rarely very good, there are a handful of exceptions but they can cost as much as a modern UWA lens and the modern lens is surely a better performer.

One example is the Tokina 3.5-4.5/20-35, a lens designed back in the early 1990s so not all that modern. However, it visibly outperforms all my old manual UWA lenses. The modern lenses like the Tokina AT-X 11-16 for APS-C offer performance and perspectives that you simply can't get with old lenses.

To get UW perspectives without IQ problems and lashings of distortion, stitching multiple images is the way to go.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 1:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
A fisheye simply can't be used as a 'normal' UWA; end of story.

Yes, software can correct distortion to a degree, but the way a fisheye projects is just too much to be corrected fully.

Old manual lenses wider than 24mm are rarely very good, there are a handful of exceptions but they can cost as much as a modern UWA lens and the modern lens is surely a better performer.

One example is the Tokina 3.5-4.5/20-35, a lens designed back in the early 1990s so not all that modern. However, it visibly outperforms all my old manual UWA lenses. The modern lenses like the Tokina AT-X 11-16 for APS-C offer performance and perspectives that you simply can't get with old lenses.

To get UW perspectives without IQ problems and lashings of distortion, stitching multiple images is the way to go.


That is certainly true.

However, I simply wanted to try it at least and as I did it for myself anyway, I also thought it might be worth sharing here.

From the old lenses I personally know the 15mm/3.5 Takumar is certainly an extraordinary UWA, unfortunately I don't have one myself. However, my old 20mm lenses from Pentax and Minolta are not really bad as well.

I don't have experience with those new zoom lenses as for APS-C I am rather fine with my CV UWA lenses in LTM but for FF I don't have anything comparable, i.e. really usable (for my taste) below the mentioned 20mm. Only some fish-eyes. Therefore the experiment....

Panorama stitching is certainly one way to go, but not always feasible under all possible circumstances.

Finally my widest lens in the "good old film times" was always 24mm and I didn't really miss anything. So the 20mm on FF should be OK for me for some more years to come. Wink


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 4:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Besides "using it wrong", gauging what result will be after "de-fishing" when taking photos can be challenging. Wink

Some of the better fish-eye photos imho have no perspective clues -- that fish-eye lens is used is not apparent.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
visualopsins wrote:
Some of the better fish-eye photos imho have no perspective clues -- that fish-eye lens is used is not apparent.

+1


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 6:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
tb_a wrote:
iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
A fisheye simply can't be used as a 'normal' UWA; end of story.

Yes, software can correct distortion to a degree, but the way a fisheye projects is just too much to be corrected fully.

Old manual lenses wider than 24mm are rarely very good, there are a handful of exceptions but they can cost as much as a modern UWA lens and the modern lens is surely a better performer.

One example is the Tokina 3.5-4.5/20-35, a lens designed back in the early 1990s so not all that modern. However, it visibly outperforms all my old manual UWA lenses. The modern lenses like the Tokina AT-X 11-16 for APS-C offer performance and perspectives that you simply can't get with old lenses.

To get UW perspectives without IQ problems and lashings of distortion, stitching multiple images is the way to go.


That is certainly true.

However, I simply wanted to try it at least and as I did it for myself anyway, I also thought it might be worth sharing here.

From the old lenses I personally know the 15mm/3.5 Takumar is certainly an extraordinary UWA, unfortunately I don't have one myself. However, my old 20mm lenses from Pentax and Minolta are not really bad as well.

I don't have experience with those new zoom lenses as for APS-C I am rather fine with my CV UWA lenses in LTM but for FF I don't have anything comparable, i.e. really usable (for my taste) below the mentioned 20mm. Only some fish-eyes. Therefore the experiment....

Panorama stitching is certainly one way to go, but not always feasible under all possible circumstances.

Finally my widest lens in the "good old film times" was always 24mm and I didn't really miss anything. So the 20mm on FF should be OK for me for some more years to come. Wink


The Minolta 20mm is not bad at all.

I've tried a lot of old UWAs and honestly, to go really wide, a modern zoom is the best bet, especially wider than 20mm.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 6:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
The Samyang 12mm/2.0 for APS-C is quite good too for a relatively low price.
Post new topic   Reply to topic
Home   Manual Focus Lenses
Page 1 of 1