Test driving the Vivitar 7mm Fisheye

Just received this lens from B and H today (and a curse on the person who started a thread about this lens a few days ago and brought it to my attention. I didn't need to spend any more money on lenses this year.) Took a few images and so far, so good. It's manual focus, of course, but that's not a problem. In fact, a lens like this could easily be fix focused. I forgot to focus a few times but could hardly tell in the final image. The instructions say to set the mode dial on Manual and also set manual focus on the front dial, but it seems to work just as well in Program mode and autofocus. It has an aperture ring, just like the old days, and this can be used to tweak the exposure. Here's a sample image. As I said, just a brief trial run but I think it's a keeper.


As promised, more photos. Took it out for further testing today. Since I bought this lens, we've had nothing but harsh, hard sunlight (not complaining though; it was a long time coming) and I'm anxious to see how it does in overcast conditions. So far, I'm happy with the lens.









Edited by BobSo - 15 July 2009 at 22:14

no vignetting?

Haven't noticed any vignetting yet, but I've only taken a few shots. I don't know how the sharpness compares to the Peleng, since this is the only fisheye I have. Will shoot more tomorrow.

Swiftyspix wrote: Did you take that with an A900?

It's not a full frame lens - it's specifically designed for correct coverage on APS-C.

Is it an A-mount lens with automatic aperture, or is it stop-down metering like you do with M42?

Bob J wrote: One way of confirming is to put the camera facing up with the self-timer on and see how near to the horizon it gets on all sides - when we tried a similar experiment with the Zenitar on the a900 and film 7, it was a bit short of 180 on full-frame.

Bob, I pointed out your error in the original thread you're referring to. The 180 degree coverage is from corner to corner - not from side to side.

I don't get how this can be diagonally 180 degrees - the Sigma 10mm / Nikkor 10.5mm DX diagonal fisheye is supposed to give that.

7mm would be wider than the Peleng 8mm, which is a circular fisheye on full-frame.

Is Vivitar mis-stating the focal length, or is the fisheye's curvature different from existing fisheyes?