Fisheye lens for Nikon D40

[J-Morrissey]

Hello all, I'm 16, and am building my Photography gear up, i have a Nikon D40, 70-300 mm telephoto lens, 18-55 mm standard lens, and a Macbook for Photoshoping.

I'm going to Italy for 2 months at the end of this year and am planning to take alot of nice shots with my Telephoto. I will be doing my major art all this year and next, with snowboarding/wintersport photography being the base of my concept. A style i will be using is the famous Cole Barash; Cole Barash

I really like the half pipe shot with the fisheye lens!

What im here to ask today is if there is a decent fisheye lens (that will autofocus) on my Nikon D40 for around $200-$400? everywhere i seem to look they are either too expensive or arent Nikon.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thankyou.

[Cola]

Theres nothing wrong with non Nikon lenses. In my book it goes

1: Nikon (or Canon for Canon users)
2: Sigma
3: Tamron
4: Tokina

Now in some cases I feel differently but still, there's nothing wrong with other manufacturers. Fisheyes are pretty pricey at times. For the D40, the only lenses that will autofocus are ones that have the motor built in. Nikkor calls these lenses AF-S, other manufactures call it different things. If you don't mind manual focusing you can use most Nikon mount lenses. (not sure is the D40 is Non AI lens compatible but that is very old school)

I have gotten many lenses from keh.com used and been extremely happy with them and highly recommend the company to any photographer that wants to buy (or even sell) used and new gear.

Happy shooting!

[inkista]

Not that I know of. Most of the autofocusing diagonal-on-a-crop fisheyes are in the $600-$700 price range: Nikkor 10.5 ($670), Sigma 10mm ($650), Tokina 10-17 ($580).

OTOH, a fisheye is a really short lens. It has a huge DoF. Autofocusing really isn't that big of a deal, particularly if you have enough light to stop the lens down to f/8 or smaller. Hitting hyperfocal with a fisheye at close distances is dead easy.


Canon XT. Sigma 8mm f/4 EX DG circular fisheye. iso 100, f/16, 1/125s.

[That front flower was only a few centimeters away from the front element. Objects may be closer than they appear with fisheyes.]

So, I'd say go get a manual focus one.

given your budget, your only choice is the Samyang/Rokinon (and 17 other brands) fisheye. The Rokinon 8mm version can be found on Amazon for about $260. I mean, you could look for a Peleng, but it's not nearly as nice optically, it's probably more expensive and it won't cover the sensor completely.

[Cola]

Also another thing to bare in mind is the crop factor. Most older manual focus lenses are built for a full frame sensor so if you get a 10mm made for a full frame sensor and use it on your cropped D40 sensor, you would have to take into account the 1.5 crop factor which would essentially turn your 10mm into about a 15mm I believe, if I did the conversion right.

Just something to keep i mind with older film lenses and anything for full frame.

[jdepould]

With a fisheye, you get a ton of depth, even wide open. Manual focus is much less of a thing. Many of the shots you're looking at on that page are remotes as well, which means they're probably prefocused.

[J-Morrissey]

Thanks for the quick reply guys.
The brands you mentioned i have never really heard of? is that going to be a bad factor? should i worry about them breaking easily or having problems?
Thanks again.

[inkista]

kinda sorta but not really. The field of view will change, but the lens will still be a 10mm lens. Focal length is a physical property of a lens that doesn't change depending on the size of the sensor you mount behind it.

What's more important with fisheye lenses is knowing whether they were designed for full frame or crop body, and whether they're circular or diagonal, because of vignetting issues.

That image I posted above was taken with a circular fisheye that was designed for full frame. On my crop body, because it's like cropping off the edges, you don't actually see the full image circle--but I do still get black corners. If I put that same fisheye lens on my 5D2, I will actually see the full circle within the frame.

A diagonal lens is designed to cover the entire frame from corner to corner (hence the name), but if you buy one that's designed for a crop body (which all of the ones I mentioned above in my post are), and then you attempt to put it on a full frame, you'll probably get some really funky (green-lantern-kinda) vignetting pattern. And then you start hearing weird stories about "shaving hoods" (i.e., cutting the built-in hoods off the lenses to reduce the vignetting on full frame). Don't go there.

One more word of advice. Most fisheyes have bulgy front elements. So, these lenses are typically equipped with a built in hood or a lens collar so that you can actually put a lenscap on the front of it. If the lens you get has a removable collar--take that off before you shoot. I was shooting with my first Sigma 8mm with the 1cm collar on for months, before I found out that taking it off made this kind of difference:

Collar on:


Collar off:

[Cola]

Well generall you want to take good care of your lenses anyway so in most normal cases all of these lenses hold up well. When I am purchasing anything that costs more than $50 I have a process I go through.

1: Find out what exactly I want from a product.

2: Set my budget

3: Look within my budget what items meet my needs/wants

4: Make a list of results from #3 and research them online. Look for reviews from others who have bought it, not magazine or company reviews.

5: Look on youtube to see if I can find video reviews to get a better look at each product

6: If it is photography related look on flickr. In your case ones you have lens options, search for it on Flickr and see what others have done with that lens

7: Narrow down to at least 2 or 3 that I would want, find the cheapest price for each and make my choice.

[J-Morrissey]

Thanks for the tips and facts guys, ill probably be buying one this week so if i'm not sure on what lens, ill make a reply to the thread, but thanks once again for the help.

[Cola]

Whatever lens you get be sure to post some sample pics and let us know what you think of it. Good luck!