[shoplink 16268 ebay]
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At Photokina Digital King announced the new 12mm f/7.4 fisheye lens for NEX. This lens is now for the first time in Stock via [shoplink 16268 ebay]multiple eBay resellers (Click here)[/shoplink]. Not exactly a main stream lens and the 8mm [shoplink 16269 ebay]Rokinon/Samyang lens (here on eBay)[/shoplink] may be a better choice unless you need exactly the 12mm focal length.
Here are the Gloxy specs:
- Focal distance: 12mm
- Coating: 7 layers multi coating to reduce aberrations to a minimum
- Lens construction: 4 elements in 4 groups
- Focusing distance: 0.5m to infinitive
- Aperture: f/7.4
- Weight: 220g
- Dimensions: 65.00 x 58.5mm
Here are some image samples (Click on it to see a larger sized pic):
18 Responses
I have 12mm f2.8, all I did was got myself a 16mm f2.8 on eBay for $132 and then I got Wide Angle Conversion Lens on eBay for $109 so all of the two items cost me $241. I don’t like fisheye!, and it’s manual only. I think I still have a better value, 2 lenses at f2.8 who else can beat that?
I believe you lose a little bit of light with the ultra wide converter. I think it makes the lens about f3.2.
How can I check/make sure it is at f2.8 or about f3.2 when the wide angle adapter is attached?
I don’t own the lens, but I would imagine it would read f2.8 when the adapter is attached to the 16mm lens. However, in reality it is actually a half a stop of light lost according to Kurt Munger as referenced at this review: http://kurtmunger.com/sony__nex_ultra_wide_converterid322.html
If it is losing half a stop, that is hardly significant.
I find this combination to be very useful.
I have exactly that same lens combination as well, the 16mm f2.8 with the 0.75x magnification/converter to provide a 12mm equivalent. Even with a 1/2 stop light loss, (if true), I can live with that for the few occasions I might need to use such a wide angle. So, the cost performance is surely there. I agree. For most practical purposes, the 16-50mm pancake zoom on the NEX6 is sufficient for the majority of shooting scenarios. And that, in and of itself provides 16mm at the wide end. So, unless one uses the 0.75x for 12mm, there really is not much use/need for acquiring a sidekick 12mm prime and it’s associated cost.
Ouch, pricy for a fixed-aperture slow lens (but yeah, for fisheye, f/7.4 is sufficient for most work). If it drops below $100US it might be amusing, but I’m plenty happy with the Samyang fisheye.
offtopic: Happy New Year!!!
Lens-joke, more joke than panasonic lens-cap 15/8.
That (15/8) is from Olympus and is given for free with one of the EPL cameras as the body cap. That is not a joke.
The joke was when Sony shipped NEX-5 and NEX-3 with no body cap. They did not even make one when they made those cams.
My NEX-3 and NEX-5 both came with body and lens caps, sorry.
By the time you bought them, they might have managed to make the body caps. Good for you! 🙂
I was one of the early buyers and ended getting only the worm. 🙁
I hate to be down on a company offering a new product for the NEX, but this sound more like a 12mm UWA that they couldn’t quite get the barrel distortion out of.
And if the front element is flat, i don’t understand why they didn’t try making accommodations for filter threads. At least that would be a unique functionality.
Strange to see this lens coming up. Most of the folks who don’t care so much about the quality of image, especially about corner to corner sharpness in open apertures will be some what satisfied with 16mm pancake + fisheye converter. (Gives them 2 lenses. I didn’t need pancake’s 16mm after buying nex6 with the new 16-5mm zoom, by the way it’s not any better IQ than the older pancake but covers the 16mm whole for me)
But I am so happy with my recent exchange of that 2 lens combo with Rokinon nex f/2.8
So easy to do manual focus (you hardly need to be careful when it is fisheye) great built quality (aperture ring is especially beautiful, focus ring is so smooth) and most importantly; significantly sharper corner to corner with much less chromatic aberration issues.
You know where I see the results? Photoshop now never fails to stitch my rokinon images for creating panoramas. It’s a proof that it can find sharper and more defined control points in the sides and corners of the images. Even in f/2.8
Pancake and fisheye converter frustrated my photoshop big time even after lens profile corrections, even at f/8 aperture.
Just to share with you my perspective.
Which Rokinon nex f/2.8?
The 8mm fisheye.
220g for a 12mm/7.4 fisheye? It could have been done with a single piece of glass 1.5 mm in diameter! Even Olympus weightless cap-lens is rectilinear!
Just checked the price. Why would anyone buy that over the Samyang 8mm?