The Eye Of A Fish - Tokina

I have not reviewed many fish-eye lenses in this column over the years - not for any sinister reason, mind, but really because I am at a loss as to what images will be best captured with them.

I do not swim underwater with the fish and rarely go to pop concerts or inaugurations that might have tens of thousands of people attending them. I rarely go into caverns or cathedrals, and generally do not take the wide view of the place. So for me, the fish-eye view is a novelty.

For others, it can be the exact way they see the world...and I am not talking about haddock and tuna...some people see a wider view than I do. Not surprising, really, as I was fitted with spectacles at the age of eight and have seen the world through frames for the last 60 years.

For those who do see more, the Tokina AT-X 10-17mm f:3.5-4.5 DX Fisheye lens is a wonderful device. It is avaiable for Canon and Nikon mounts - this one is the Nikon version - and is built in the old-school material - metal. Note the slightly bulging front element that is characteristic of a fisheye lens and the fixed compact lens hood.

As we said with the other Tokina lens reviewed recently, the focus and zoom ring action is smooth and well damped and the operation very quick indeed.

A worthy optic for experimenters, interior shooters, landscapists, and environmental shooters. Not exactly a portrait lens, unless your taste in portraiture differs markedly from that of the rest of the world...and from that of the clients. Mind you if your clientele are haddock or you do schools portraits for herring and you can sell  the images, by all means come in and buy one!

As with all Tokina: made in Japan

Eyeing The Fish On Dry Land

There have been a number of photographic equipment manufacturers in the past who have made what are termed "fisheye" lenses. I can recall seeing examples from Olympus, Nikon, Canon, Tokina, and Rokinon in my time at the shop. Doubtless there have many others - even down to Saga or Spiratone who made a fisheye adapter that we all bought in the 35mm era.

Did I include Sigma in that list? I should have, because they have made a number of these...and this week we have one to play with in the studio.

It is a 10mm f:2.8 DC version that is intended for use on an APS-C sized Nikon. I'm testing it by means of a Kindai adapter and a Fujifilm X-E2 camera. This is not as cumbersome as you might think - the adapter has an aperture control ring that allows you to make exposure changes on Nikon G lenses. It is not marked with conventional stops...it has 0 to 7 on the control ring but you quickly learn to count down from whatever the maximum aperture is and anyway a check of the LCD screen shows you whether you are on the right track. Fortunately the Fujifilm X-E2 has a provision in its control menu that lets you see clearly through the finder or on the screen even if you are stopping down. You can watch the DOF advancing as the numbers climb.

So, what do you use a fisheye lens for, anyway? I have no blessed idea. I never did know, even when I had the Spiratone fisheye lens screwed on the front of a Pentax 55mm Super-Takumar. I did the obligatory big-nose picture of a friend and made the headlight assembly of my old Renault 10 loom out of the picture - like I had seen in the photo magazines of the time - and then ran out of ideas. Doubtless if I had had occasion and permission to shoot straight upwards inside the Dome of St. Peter's in Rome or St. Paul's the view of the lens would have been invaluable.

Likewise I can see it as a novel establishing shot for any other imposing environment - church, cathedral, cavern, missile silo, etc should the opportunity present itself. Or produce and image that is hip, funky, swinging, or whatever the buzz word would laud, in other circumstances. A bold advertising photographer might record a product photo using one, but would have to be fast on the feet to sell it to the art director and the client - generally they tend to favour undistorted views of their sales items.

Landscape? Well, yes, but you do get to a point where the wide but distorted view becomes repetitive. Likewise use during sporting events or crowd affairs. Once seen, a fisheye picture impresses itself on the memory in such a way that it is really unnecessary to do again.

But. But. But...

But that impression can be as essential to making a visual point as a punctuation mark can be to a written description. It is not the period, nor comma of visual punctuation - it is the exclamation mark! In some cases it is several of these!! AND THE NEXT SENTENCE IN CAPITALS!!!!

You can't write a letter or email like that all the time, but you can wake up the reader occasionally with something unexpected. That's the fisheye lens.

Note: Apparently it is possible to use these lenses to construct virtual reality images but the computer has to do a great deal of electronic heavy lifting in some cases to cope with the distortion evident at the edges of the images. Be warned.

Here's Another Stop For Free From Olympus

Seems that I have made a mistake. This is not the first time - I made another one in 1959...

I listed a cashback offer from Olympus regarding an 8mm Olympus lens and thought that it was a f:2.8 lens. Wrong.

Daniel Morton has just corrected me - it is apparently a 1.8 lens - which means the fish can see in just half the light...A decided advantage for all of us.

Thank you Daniel and thank you Olympus.

Uncle Dick

A Very Small Fish Indeed - With Olympus

This post will appeal to those photographers who have done with the boring old representation of reality. Because the fish-eye lens is one of the easiest ways to depart from this.

Now, if you are a fish, you can dispute this. When we couple a short focal length lens to a digital camera and allow it to see widely with noticeable curvature on the margins of the image - it appears perfectly natural to a herring. Halibut find no inconsistency. Tuna are bored, but then tuna never really respond to the visual arts. They are more into music - particularly keyboard music. We have all heard of a piano tuna...

Moving right along...if you are a micro 4/3 user this is your opportunity to do something fishy. The Olympus people make a wonderful little 9mm f:8 fisheye lens that clips intot he front of any of their micro 4/3 mirrorless cameras - and indeed into those of the Panasonic people as well - and acts as both a body cap and a fast fish eye.

You get to do a little bit of focussing, but really that is gilding the goldfish - this lens has such a depth of field that you can more-or-less just leave it at the middle click stop and never bother to change. It is super light.

Results? Well the header is just out front of the shop in Stirling Street in yesterday's heat. Pretty good for a case of poke the camera out the door and press the button then pull the arm back inside.

And if you have a program on your computer that deals with camera distortions - this Macbook Pro is using Photoshop Elements 10 - you can make the new Pagoda Format pictures. Also known as the Framer's Nightmare.