{"id":8368,"date":"2014-08-27T15:19:43","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T20:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stayfocusedpress.com\/blog\/?p=8368"},"modified":"2021-02-09T20:53:13","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T01:53:13","slug":"what-a-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/?p=8368","title":{"rendered":"What a View"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wide Angle to the Extreme<\/h3>\n

It’s eye-catching when I see a photo that “bends” the horizon.<\/p>\n

This bend comes from the camera’s lens. Use a very wide angle lens and you’ll see the curved “barrel” distortion on the images. One well-known type of wide angle lenses is the fisheye. These lenses typically have a field of view approaching 180 degrees – allowing you to capture the entire scene in front of the camera.<\/p>\n

Until recently, fisheye lenses were expensive. I have one that cost well over $1500. But when I was looking for an ultra-wide angle for my Sony equipment, I found an inexpensive lens made by Rokinon<\/strong>. With its $300 price tag, I was a little skeptical of the quality of images from such a low cost lens but decided to try it regardless.<\/p>\n

Here’s a short gallery of some of the scenes that I captured during my first outing with the lens a few weeks ago.
\n 
\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a>

\nThis is an 8mm f\/2.8 fisheye. I wanted an ultra-wide angle for an extra Sony Nex7 mirrorless camera.<\/center><\/td>\n
<\/a>

\nThe Nex7 is very compact and lightweight. The Rokinon 8mm fisheye is also surprisingly compact.
\n<\/center><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a>

\nThe Sony Nex7\/Rokinon 8mm setup is only about 1\/3 the size of my Canon 6D with a Canon 8-15mm fisheye – a true space and weight saver.<\/center><\/td>\n
<\/a>

\nOne of the first images that I recorded with the new lens was in the Tetons. I especially like the curved horizon.
\n<\/center><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a>
\n

\nHere in Yellowstone you can see that the bridge rail curves upwards. The lens does not support the camera’s autofocus feature. <\/center><\/td>\n
<\/a>

\nHowever an 8mm lens has a very wide depth of field which makes focusing less critical as you can see in this image taken at Mono Lake.<\/center><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a>
\n

\nAt Grand Canyon, the bend in the horizon is amazingly scenic. The lens does not support autoexposure so I set the camera shooting mode to manual, set the lens aperture to f\/8 and adjusted to the proper shutter speed.<\/center><\/td>\n
<\/a>
\n

\nIn both of these photos, you can see that the exposure for both a shaded and sunny scene were correct. Neither the manual focus nor the manual exposure requirements of this lens is a concern. <\/center><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a>
\n

\nAt Monument Valley I took advantage of the lens’ extreme wide view. Here I was able to take in a 180-degree view to photograph this huge monument within a single image.<\/center><\/td>\n
<\/a>
\n

\nThe fisheye excels for those of you who like shooting portraits that include the vast surroundings.<\/center><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/a>
\n

\nAt Mesa Verde, we encountered another “tight squeeze”. However, we were able to capture this with the lens’ wide view.<\/center><\/td>\n
<\/a>
\n

\nIn Rocky Mountain National Park, the lens took in not only the winter’s left over snow but the billowing overhead July clouds.<\/center><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
What about the sharpness?<\/p>\n

Here I’ve enlarged a small section of one of the above images. You can clearly see the detail in the face, the lettering of the cap and the tufa formations in the background.<\/p>\n

I found the sharpness of this inexpensive lens to be very acceptable.<\/td>\n

<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

After my short time with this lens, I am no longer skeptical of it’s quality. The images are tack sharp with very good color reproduction. If you’re on the lookout for an ultra-wide, include this lens in your search.<\/p>\n

The Rokinon 8mm f\/2.8 fisheye is also available for other camera models as well: Fuji, Samsung and Canon M mount. Other similar versions with a maximum f\/3.5 aperture are available for Canon, Nikon, Sony A mount, Pentax and Olympus 4\/3.
\n 
\n 
\nWritten by: Arnie Lee
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

\n

 
\n 
\n 
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wide Angle to the Extreme It’s eye-catching when I see a photo that “bends” the horizon. This bend comes from the camera’s lens. Use a very wide angle lens and you’ll see the curved “barrel” distortion on the images. One well-known type of wide angle lenses is the fisheye. These lenses typically have a field […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,181,97,14,28],"tags":[144,88,118,750,247,752,751,749,183,537,394,748,538,187,480,539,370,385],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8368"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8368"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10778,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8368\/revisions\/10778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}