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Introduction

I bought this lens about 18 months ago after looking around a while for an inexpensive wide angle lens for my Canon 10D, since my trusty Tokina 19-35mm had suddenly become a not-so-useful 30-56mm due to the 10D's 1.6x multiplication factor.

The main attraction of this lens was it's price - at about $150, it was almost 10x cheaper than it's Canon (not fisheye) equivalent. This is less true now (March 2005), with Sigma, Tamron, and Tokina all coming to market with significant offerings in wide angle, albeit with reduced image circles that cause serious vignetting in standard film SLRs, and still in the $5-600 price range.

At first, I was somewhat wary, as the only way I could obtain the lens was over the internet. Hmm. A Russian lens, purchased over the net, from a company I had never heard of, based in New York and shipping from the Ukraine - that should be safe shopping, don't you think?

Anyway I took the plunge, and was pleasantly surprised when the package arrived on time, arrayed in mysterious Cyrillic markings and postage, splendidly cocooned in stout brown paper and string, (these are a few of my favorite things...) containing all the items promised along with my shiny new lens.

Out of the Box

Examining the lens, I found a surprisingly weighty sturdy metal construction, with an aperture ring that rotated firmly and had positive click stops, and a focus ring that was serviceably smooth. It is natively an M42 screw mount and mounts to different makes of camera by means of a supplied T mount ring adaptor.

The focus ring is marked in metres and feet, and has a DoF scale.

Operation

Be aware that this is not an EOS/Nikon autoeverything microminiaturized electronic marvel. This is a lens of the old school, where focus and aperture are managed by hand.

To take a shot, you set your camera to Av (Aperture priority), you set the aperture by hand on the lens ring, and the camera meters in the normal way and sets the shutter speed. You can also work in Manual mode, setting the shutter speed yourself from the camera's meter reading.

Shooting

I attached the lens to my Canon 10D on an overcast day, and took myself off to Fell's Point for some tests. I spent a while taking all the normal stuff - ships, tugs, the harbor, blah blah...I viewed the results from the first hour of shooting (instantly - doncha just love that digital!?) and found some slightly distorted but otherwise average 24mm shots.
Ho Hum.

Then - a small but important epiphany. This lens and camera combination is so small and unobtrusive that I found I could work in 'street/rangefinder' mode - set the aperture at f8, preset focus distance, let the enormous depth-of-field take care of the rest, preset the shutter according to the camera's meter, and shoot.

For someone who is constantly fretting about focus, DoF, backlighting, shutter speed vs camera shake and all the other constraints of technologically advanced picture taking, this is an enormously liberating experience.

I found that I hardly needed to look in the viewfinder (which, as the lens was set at f8, was pretty dim anyway). The large field of view made sure I got everything in - I could walk past a street trader, a couple kissing on a bench, a dog walker, shoot from the hip - they'd never know. Completely relieved of the usual stressful necessity of thinking my way through every single exposure, I had a lot of fun that day.


Gallery 1 - Fell's Point from the hip
Gallery 2 - N'Awlins from the hip
Gallery 3 - Other Fisheye stuff

Quality

When I saw the photos on the large screen at home, I immediately noticed two things. One is that this is a fine little lens, capable of taking sharp, crisp, contrasty images.

The other is that it's a fisheye (duh!) which means that any straight lines not running through the central axes of the frame will be curved. Two things ameliorate this 'defect'.

One - the 10D's reduced sensor area means that the image is taken from the center of the lens where the effect is less pronounced than at the edges.

Two - As this is such a wide angle lens, usually more image than is needed falls within the frame. This means that image editing software can be used to straighten the curves. (This operation usually means throwing away some information at the edges of the frame).

Caveats

The lens cap construction is not all that it could be - the clips that hold the cap on the lens broke very quickly, and I have to use silly putty to hold the cap on. No, I can't replace it with an equivalent - the lens has a useless little 'hood' attached, which makes the shape of the cap unique.

I made my tests on an overcast day - don't include the sun anywhere near the picture - this lens flares!

Being a fisheye, the front element of the lens protrudes a lot. Combined with the near useless lens cap, this makes for a very easily damaged surface if you're not very careful.

It's not auto-everything (possibly a good thing).

Conclusions

Even without taking into account the remarkably low price, this is a little gem. All metal construction and heft (lens cap aside) make for a substantial feeling. (This is important - I'm on my third Canon 50mm f1.8 II - they just fall apart in my hands - plastic).

The image quality is excellent, just avoid shooting into the sun. The results from this lens can be excitingly different from any other - if you don't overdo the fisheye effect. Most of all, it puts the phun back into photography.

Find it at RUGIFT along with some very interesting other lenses and cameras, all charmingly described in Eastern European English (Ukrainglish?)

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