WIDE ANGLE AND FISH EYE

Hi everyone,
I'm planning to get a wide angle lense and a fish eye, I wonder wich one would be the best, PENTAX or other manufacturer?


Thanks!!!

Duh !!!

Pentax 10-17mm 'Fisheye'


I loves it

Agreed

I'm also all for the 10-17 fisheye zoom. It's a terrific lens and you can have a lot of fun with it. This is certainly documented in many of Galoot's great shots with it!

On the wide angle front I'm not sure. I guess that's something I would want to look into in the not too distant future...
So please let us know what you find out.

Prieni

Fisheyes: Pentax DA 10-17 and Zenitar 16mm FE prime

Pentax DA 10-17.
Pros.
Small size
Zoom
Great performance
No perspective stretch
Affordable, especially with the cashback currently offered in the UK.
Cons:
Fish-eye distortion, can be de-fished quite successfully at the longer end (i.e. 14-17mm) by software like PTLens. Although you can defish 10mm shots they become very prone to extreme pixel stretching, softness and CA.

Zenitar.
Pros.
Low cost (usually under £100 from (generally) reliable eBay sellers)
Small size.
F2.8, but soft wide open
De-fishes well, has a FOV similar to a 14mm rectilinear lens.
Cons.
Manual lens (No AF or Auto stopdown)
No zoom
Russian build quality, i.e. old fashioned all metal, but a bit rough around the edges.

I haven't included the Sigma Fish-eye lenses as they are expensive, large and from my own experience, not that wonderful.

Rectilinear super wides. - Pentax DA 12-24, Pentax DA 14 and Sigma 10-20.

DA 12-24
Pros.
Constant f4.0 aperture, quite fast for a wide lens.
Very sharp and even across the frame edge to edge, with high resolution, even wide open, outperforms the DA 14 up to about f8.0.
The best colour and contrast
Very well made.
Zoom and AF - Covers up to 24mm which is probably the nicest street photography focal length. Probably one of the best Pentax zoom lenses.
Cons.
Some CA (which is correctable in post processing with a lot of software)
Some barrel distortion at 12mm, but is not moustache distortion and is readily correctable.
Large (77mm) filter size. Need slim filters to avoid vignetting.
Very large hood (actually a good thing, but you need to know!)
Expensive (compared to the Tokina 12-24, it's sibling) but better with the current UK cashback.
Not much else.

Sigma 10-20
Pros.
A bit cheaper than the DA 12-24
A bit smaller, especially the hood.
Covers down to 10mm.
Zoom and AF
Lowish CA
Cons.
Quite a slow lens at f4.5-f5.6 (very "consumer" IMO).
Not that sharp wide open, nor very even across the frame, poor macro contrast.
Suspected large field curvature problems at the wider end, creates issues with AF below 15mm, best to manually focus to get the correct sharpness across the frame, otherwise the edges and especially the corners in ultra wide landscape shots are often out of focus. You can't rely on the huge depth of field to keep you out of trouble.
Has to be stopped down quite a bit to get reasonable sharpness then diffraction kicks in.
20mm is not quite an ideal street lens focal length, I found I kept changing back and forth between my 16-45 and the 10-20, much more so than with the DA 12-24.
Moustache distortion at the wide end, not so easily corrected.
10mm produces too much perspective distortion to my taste, in fact anything with much wider than a 90 deg field of view (approx 13.5mm on APS-C) begins to create more problems than advantages.

DA14
Pros.
Great build quality
Very good close focus
Usual great Pentax colour and contrast
Low price for a pro grade f2.8 wide angle prime lens
Low distortion and easily correctable.
Lower CA than the DA 12-24
Cons.
Not as sharp as the DA 12-24, needs to be stopped down to f5.6/f8.0 to begin to gain any advantage.
No zoom feature
If you don't need f2.8 and better close focus, then go for the DA 12-24
Not much else

I cannot comment on the Sigma 12-24 f4.5-5.6 EX as I've never tried one, as I wasn't after a FF lens.

NB. These are my own experiences. I don't make comments based upon what reviews or others may say, they can do that for themselves.

Bottom line
Buy both the DA 12-24 and the DA 10-17!
They are quite different and suit completely different styles of photography.
Personally, I would start off with the DA 10-17 and see how you get on. If the need for a rectilinear street lens of super quality is obviously very important and you find your DA 16-45 (or 16-50) just doen't cut it for those wide shots, then the DA 12-24 is a winner.

Thanks richard for this !

(But the only mistake is that the Zenitar is a 16mm, not a 17mm ... )

- Typo error! Spot on, sharp eyes! Now corrected.

Thanks to you all, and special thanks to Richard REALLY helpful, I am really pleased!!!

Hi there.

The 10-17 Pentax fisheye is an excellent and fun lens. I really enjoy using it for those unsual pics, especially buildings.

Works best on intense strong sunny weather, and needs lots of underexposing to get the best result, but is VERY sharp.

Would recommend.

Graham

The pentax Fish-eye is great if you like Fish-eye distortion. (Only when zoomed all the way out. When zoomed in you dont get the Fish-eye distortion.) The sigma Fish-eye does not have the Fish-eye distortion in it.

I love my 10-17....only hint....get up close to your subject....

That's because it's not a fisheye lens. Fisheye lenses are of curvilinear design. The Sigma 10-20mm and Pentax 12-24mm are both rectilinear.