Lichtspiel
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During my MFT days, one of my fave lenses was the Rokinon/Samyang 7.5mm fisheye. There isn't anything close to that (size/weight) for Sony FF, but I read a few comments about adapting that same lens to my A7C. Figured it'd be worth some dremeling.
Hands-off a very wide angle. Note the ugly reflections outside the circle.
So to adapt, you 1) need a MFT to FE adapter , 2) remove the lens hood and do some dremeling to get rid of the "wings" and 3) unscrew the back and remove one or both of the thin brass gaskets to allow for infinite focusing.
Very handy. A quick photo-shopping to clean up the ball-borders.
My expectations were very low, but I was surprised to find that the results are fairly usable. I would not print them large, but looking at them on a monitor does not hurt.
Now that's a funky flare.
The tiny, light lens manages to cover almost all of the height (4000 pixels in my case) of the sensor, which came as a positive surprise. Now, what's really stunning is the ~190 degree angle. Yep, that's right, this lens manages to look behind itself. Mind-boggling.
A Fruit Ball. Big harvest this year, thanks to global warming. Gently cropped.
I wasn't able to go out and find some stunning subjects, so I just bumbled around in the garage and backyard and snapped away. Not a lens I would carry everyday, but for special occasions... does it get any wider?
Laying the camera on the table, duck, hit the shutter... or was hit the shutter, duck? Doesn't get any easier. Not cropped, slight de-fish.
With previous fisheye adventures, I often partially or completely de-fished. Not that easy with a circular fisheye, so results are a bit mixed. Corners will certainly suffer if one goes for a complete de-fish.
Voigtländer: Stretched corners, or curvy curves? Pick your poison.
Let's do some quick comparing... my widest FE lens is the Voigtlander 15. Placing the camera on the aforementioned table, above is the result. Now let's change to the Fisheye, and we get this:
Can you spot the difference? Slight crop.
I think so. This sort-of answers the question - What's the point? If I want to get the maximum field of view, I will grab the little Roki. Personally, I don't mind some curves, and rectilinear stretched corners do sometimes give me the creeps. But I can see how someone else would hate the fishy look.
Can't deny it... it's fishy. Excuse the HDR overload. Blah. Slight crop.
Another example, here I have attempted a full d-fish of the circle, with questionable results:
Stretched version of the above ball-o-joy.
So, don't go looking at those corners, this is just to prove a point, which is... even after de-fishing, the Roki is still sooo much wider than my 15 super-ultra wide.
Obviously the Voigtländer blows the little Roki out of the water, with color, sharpness and resolution. But it doesn't even come close for cramming stuff into one frame.
There, now you know all about my backyard. It's tiny, but thanks to modern techniques I can make it look HUGE.
If I put a MFT lens on a FF cam, is the result an APS-C photo??
Verdict - I would not run out and buy this lens for my A7C. But, having it sit in a drawer, and not offering a lot of resale value, I think the operation was a success...
Hands-off a very wide angle. Note the ugly reflections outside the circle.
So to adapt, you 1) need a MFT to FE adapter , 2) remove the lens hood and do some dremeling to get rid of the "wings" and 3) unscrew the back and remove one or both of the thin brass gaskets to allow for infinite focusing.
Very handy. A quick photo-shopping to clean up the ball-borders.
My expectations were very low, but I was surprised to find that the results are fairly usable. I would not print them large, but looking at them on a monitor does not hurt.
Now that's a funky flare.
The tiny, light lens manages to cover almost all of the height (4000 pixels in my case) of the sensor, which came as a positive surprise. Now, what's really stunning is the ~190 degree angle. Yep, that's right, this lens manages to look behind itself. Mind-boggling.
A Fruit Ball. Big harvest this year, thanks to global warming. Gently cropped.
I wasn't able to go out and find some stunning subjects, so I just bumbled around in the garage and backyard and snapped away. Not a lens I would carry everyday, but for special occasions... does it get any wider?
Laying the camera on the table, duck, hit the shutter... or was hit the shutter, duck? Doesn't get any easier. Not cropped, slight de-fish.
With previous fisheye adventures, I often partially or completely de-fished. Not that easy with a circular fisheye, so results are a bit mixed. Corners will certainly suffer if one goes for a complete de-fish.
Voigtländer: Stretched corners, or curvy curves? Pick your poison.
Let's do some quick comparing... my widest FE lens is the Voigtlander 15. Placing the camera on the aforementioned table, above is the result. Now let's change to the Fisheye, and we get this:
Can you spot the difference? Slight crop.
I think so. This sort-of answers the question - What's the point? If I want to get the maximum field of view, I will grab the little Roki. Personally, I don't mind some curves, and rectilinear stretched corners do sometimes give me the creeps. But I can see how someone else would hate the fishy look.
Can't deny it... it's fishy. Excuse the HDR overload. Blah. Slight crop.
Another example, here I have attempted a full d-fish of the circle, with questionable results:
Stretched version of the above ball-o-joy.
So, don't go looking at those corners, this is just to prove a point, which is... even after de-fishing, the Roki is still sooo much wider than my 15 super-ultra wide.
Obviously the Voigtländer blows the little Roki out of the water, with color, sharpness and resolution. But it doesn't even come close for cramming stuff into one frame.
There, now you know all about my backyard. It's tiny, but thanks to modern techniques I can make it look HUGE.
If I put a MFT lens on a FF cam, is the result an APS-C photo??
Verdict - I would not run out and buy this lens for my A7C. But, having it sit in a drawer, and not offering a lot of resale value, I think the operation was a success...
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