Aspherical Boundaries

Sigma just announced a pair of new Fisheye lenses for cropped sensor cameras. The 10mm f/2.8 is simply a diagnal fisheye, giving 180 degrees of view along the diagnal of the picture. Nikon’s AF DX 10.5mm f/2.8G has served that function for a while now. Good to see a third party version though, especially with a ring USM motor.

More interestingly is the 4.5mm f/2.8. This is a circular fisheye. It projects a hemisphere of view onto a circle contained in the image (rest of it will be black). The first photo on this page shows you what a circular fisheye gives you. This is the first lens of its kind for crop sensors.

Nikon used to make these in various forms, most practical being the Nikkor 8mm f/2.8. This has been discontinued. Sigma makes a 8mm f/3.5 that is a lot smaller and cheaper, but also slower and not as good optically (or so I’ve heard).

Even more extreme is the basket ball sized 6mm f/2.8, which allowed you to see 220 degrees of view.

Tags: Nikon, Sigma, vintage, wide-angle

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 11:36 and is filed under The Camera. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.