Hi
I've a Zenitar 16mm f/2.8 fisheye lens, took it on Ebay.
The images are too soft, even at f/11, and I found a thread here on FM about a "trick" to do on the lens. You can read about it here:
The problem is that I don't understand what I have to do English is not my mothertongue...
Here is the mysterious message:
we have to adjust it is Very simple
Take the rubber bend off the lens( focusing) <- what is the rubber bend? finf 3 screws under <- I guess it's FIND Put the lens on infinity
unscrew them till the focusing ring fill loose <- some problems here... turn the ring till 1.2 will be across from the red focusing dot <- ...and here screw them back
Put rubber ring back
Should help
Francesco -- I'm an American but writing from Moscow, where I bought the zenitar for my 300D a month ago and had the same problem. The "rubber band" is the black textured band that overlies the actual focusing ring (it's what you normally think of as the focusing ring until you start to get ready to take the camera apart!). It slides forward over the front of the lens past the front glass fairly easily exposing three tiny screws than can be loosened with a very small screwdriver. In my case I overshot the mark and now have adjusted the camera so that correct infinity focus corresponds to the 1.2 meter mark (it took my quite a while to figure this out, as it was the opposite of what I was expecting to have done). I suggest that even before you take the camera apart you make sure infinity focus isn't "below" the infnity indicator, just in case. Then make sure not to overadjust. In my case I stripped one of the screws so it's stuck for the time being. But the pictures, even at low f stops when I use the 1.2 meter setting for infinity, are just great, and I can still focus to very close distances, so aside from the distance scale itself being off, the lens is wonderful.
Thanks everyone!
I took the ring apart (I thought it was this way, but I wanted to be sure... didn't want to damage the lens) and now I have to find a small screwdriver to loose the screws.
Then I guess I'll have to move the 1.2 mark OVER the red dot and then screw back everything. Is this right?
Please escuse me for the - maybe - stupid questions, but I have some problems with "technical" english
Francesco -- just one clarification. In my particular case the focus ring ended up -- after my random adjustments -- stuck so that 1.2 meters corresponds to infinity. This may not be the case with your lens; it's more likely to be somewhere else, I think. The way to figure out is to take pictures of a building or something else far away at Fstop 2.8. Then adjust your focus ring to 3 or 4 different places -- all above 1.2 meters or so, and see which of these places moves you closer to an infocus image of the object at infinity. This will help you to decide how to adjust the focus ring.
Well, I think I'll try with the 1.2 setting first, because both you and nutek (the guy on the thread i linked before) found this setting to be the best.
by the way, I still haven't found the screwdriver!
have you tried the "loosening the rear filter" trick yet? taking apart the lens is only when the lens is severely misfocussing. If it's just a little, just unscrew the rear clear filter a couple of rounds and that should improve your sharpness at infinity.
by the way I also stripped one of the screws for mine. The screws are tiny delicate things, so it's advisable to find a good quality, correctly-used screwdriver for taking apart the lens.
This morning I tried do do the job: unscrewing was good, i moved the focusing 1.2 mark over the red dot and then I screwed back everything. It is a little better, but I still have to use f/11 or higher to get a decent (not good!) focus at infinity. On the other side I can focus at a very little distance...
