Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Curvature

One more shot with the 8mm fisheye. Another look at Publika in Solaris Dutamas. Nikon D7000, Samyang 8mm f/3.5



The wheels are turning

Publika at Solaris Dutamas is an interesting, very arty place. For example, in the public square between buildings, there're old cable spools which have been turned into art pieces. The thing about using super wide angles like the Samyang 8mm is that you really have to get close to stuff if you want to show it larger in the frame -- even though it doesn't look like it, I was only about one foot from this giant spool. Nikon D7000, Samyang 8mm f3.5

The world through a fisheye

Publika
I recently bought a fisheye lens. Usually, fisheye lenses, which have a 180-degree distorted view of the world, cost more than RM2000, but recently Korean company Samyang introduced an 8mm f/3.5 manual focus lens for just RM1200 (with built in aperture and distance microchip for Nikon compatibility). So after reading many positive reviews, I bought it and I have to say I'm really impressed. Wide open at f/3.5 it's a tad soft, but stop down to f/5.6 and everything is as sharp as you could want. The best thing about fisheye lenses is that manual focus is not a problem -- if you set it to minimum focus and set the aperture to between f/5.6 and f/11, everything will be in focus! Nikon D7000, Samyang 8mm f/3.5