On Mon, 21 Oct 2002 23:13:18 GMT, dave-farmer@bigfoot.com (Dave Farmer) wrote:
>On 21 Oct 2002 14:27:04 GMT, onepercentf@aol.com (Onepercentf) wrote:

>>Do you really want a fisheye or would a very wide angle rectiliniar lens do? I
>>would recommend the Tamron 17mm, because being an Adaptall lens it will fit
>>many cameras. When you no longer need it, there will be more people to sell it
>>to (apart from just Minolta users).

>I have Sigma's 18-35, so I think an extra mm or two (whilst nice to
>have) would be very expensive for the extra range I would get. That's
>why I'm interested in a full-frame fisheye - dramatic (if a little
>corny, but what the hell!?) and different to anything I can do right
>now.

The 16mm fisheye is considerably wider than an 18mm
non-fisheye due to the spherical-perspective
characteristics, though the central magnification is
not much different. It is also easier to hand-hold
successfully at a given slow shutter speed, and it is
often optically better than a similar-FL non-fisheye.
I like fisheyes for landscapes (the forground-to-
background size differences are minimized, and are
minimal for a super-wide) and for people-shooting (the
spherical perspective type is FAR kinder to rounded
objects near the image edges than the rectangular
perspective type super-wides are). BTW, the one 16mm
Minolta fisheye I tried (same as Leitz, as I recall),
required considerable stopping down to get the "corners"
sharp, but it was quite good around f16. The best
full-frame fisheye I have seen is the older Nikkor
16mm f3.5 - this lens has very high brilliance, great
resistance to flare, and it is sharp to the corners
wide-open. It is one of the best lenses I've ever
used, and it os often $250-300US used, a bargain
(and worth buying a Nikon body for). More on it is
at www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/slemn.html