p.1 #1 · Auxilary fisheye for price or Expensive Fisheye?
I'm currently trying to decide between a raynox auxilary .3x fisheye and a 600+ dollar 8mm fisheye lens. I figure for the 500-600 dollar difference between the raynox and an actual ef mount fisheye the better decision may be to go with the raynox.
Does anyone have any experience with these kind of raynox auxilary lenses with some images?
p.1 #2 · Auxilary fisheye for price or Expensive Fisheye?
I've tried out a few fisheye aux lenses and I was never impressed - they had pretty low image quality. I recently bought a manual focus Zenitar MC 16/2.8 fisheye with EF mount for use with the full frame 5D body. It works quite well on the few occassions that I bring it out, and it only cost about $200. If you're shooting an EF-S body, then you might want to look at the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom. If you plan to shoot a lot with the fisheye point of view, then it's probably worth the investment to get a real fisheye lens. If you're not sure, then maybe you should get the aux lens first, and upgrade later if it's not good enough.
p.1 #3 · Auxilary fisheye for price or Expensive Fisheye?
If you want an 8mm fisheye, you can also get a Peleng 8mm for ~$200, a manual focus lens made in Belarus. It's a solidly built manual-focus lens with decent image quality, likely better than you could get with an add-on lens.
p.1 #4 · Auxilary fisheye for price or Expensive Fisheye?
I never was impressed with the add-ons. They had multiple problems. I've never tried the Zenitar or Peleng lenses. From what I understand they are good.
I have the Tokina 10-17MM lens and found that it is sharp and had great contrast. Only problem seems to be CA in high contrast areas. Be careful to keep your feet out of the frame. Been there, done that.
p.1 #5 · Auxilary fisheye for price or Expensive Fisheye?
I will second what the others have said without really adding any meaningful content to teh thread. I used to own a crappy .4x fisheye attachment to my 50 mm f1.8 and the quality was decent, but not great. I bought it on Ebay for about $40. This was maybe four years ago. It would require stopping down to about f/8 in order to be sharp at the edges. I've never owned those Russian-built fisheyes but I've used them and they seem fairly capable for the price. I could never justify spending $600 on a fisheye as it is practically a novelty lens... I can barely even justify spending $250 on one.
