Best fisheye for D800E?

i shoot 360° panoramas professionally, currently using a nikon D700 + nikon 16mm fisheye, which is more of less the "standard" fisheye lens for shooting 360° panoramas in most situations fairly easily on FX nikon with 6 images around + 1 up & 2 down, sometimes i use nikon 10.5mm w lens hood removed for simpler 4 around panos

see some examples here, recent panos from the last couple years were shot as above w 16mm 2.8 fe, which i will probably use on D800 when i get one - http://www.samrohn.com

16mm 2.8 is an old lens, released in 1994 it is hopefully due for an update soon, nikon 10.5mm fisheye on DX nikon is prob a little bit sharper, 16mm has room for improvement but it is what it is

sigma & samyang both make decent 8mm fisheye lenses that can be used for 360 panoramas by shooting only 4 around after removing the lenshood (with a hacksaw). nikon 10.5mm fisheye & tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom are well regarded by pano folks also

nikon 14-28 is a sharper lens than any of the fisheyes i mentioned, shooting panos with this lens requires more images than i described above, probably 2 rows of 6 and up and down shots

or like this if you are careful

http://michel.thoby.free.fr/Web_Gallery_&_Tests/Samyang%2014mm/Pano_with_8_shots_only.html

you can use any lens to shoot a 360° panoramas, longer lens means more shots & more res & wider means less shots, less chance of stitching error, changing light or subjects moving etc, it really depends on what kind of panos you want to shoot

16mm fe is wider fov than 14mm normal lens, dont worry about correcting the fisheye shots, that is handled automatically by the stitching software, either PTGui or AutoPano Pro from Kolor

here are some 360° panorama shot by other photogs using nikon D800 +

14-24mm 2.8 @ 14mm

http://www.360cities.net/image/stamaria#-24.25,-8.67,70.0

nikon 10.5mm 2.8 fisheye (lenshood shaved off for full frame camera)

http://www.360cities.net/image/museodelasciencias#408.15,-90.00,70.0

sigma 8mm f3.5

http://www.360cities.net/image/nikon-d800e-5xbracket-iso200-sigma8-3-5#559.12,-8.92,75.0

sam

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Sam Rohn
http://www.samrohn.com - 360 Degree Panoramas
http://www.nylocations.com - Location Scout
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nylocations/ -