Fisheye Advice/Help/Ideas

[lil ben]

Right, I've ordered my new camera: Panasonic HDC SD700
The lens thread is 46mm

Im hoping to get a fisheye, probably of around 52mm, and get a step up ring

Can anyone suggest any good fisheyes, preferably cheaper than £200/$250
i have been looking at this Opteka, but its quite expensive

Thanks in advance

[fortunate few]

the opteka is a decent lens if your on a budget id recommend it. Its probably the best you can get for the money. Next step up would be a century optics MK2

[al dolega]

I already responded in the other thread:

http://www.be-mag.com/msgboard/showt...c-help-fisheye

Don't waste your money on anything cheaper than that Opteka. You bought a sweet super-high-quality HD camera, now don't fuck up your footage with a shitty fisheye. If you can't afford to get the Opteka or better now, just wait a month or two until you have more money saved. It'll be worth it.

[lil ben]

Yeah, fair point.
Thanks a lot!

[AdamPetrov]

I have the 100$ 34mm Opteka on my Camera now and it looks amazing.

A lot of the reviews said it is similar to a Century Baby Death lens, at a fraction of the cost.

[al dolega]

Yea the Optekas seem to be a really good value across the board- almost Century quality at 1/3 the price, but the 37mm/43mm Baby Death-clone Opteka won't work on his camera, he needs the MKII clone (52/58/72 version), which is unfortunately twice as expensive, but it's also gonna look pretty awesome.

[lil ben]

Right, im going to save to get the 58mm Opteka or this Raynox which is a little cheaper, i also found this Opteka which is much cheaper, but obviously its not going to be anywhere near as good as the other one.
Im just starting to go off the idea of spending more than £200 on the lens.

By getting the bigger lens diameter and a step up ring will it definitely eliminate the vignetting??
Because some people ive spoke to dont reckon it will, because of the step-up ring. and i dont want to spend £200+ on a lens that gives be vignetting or is no good for my camera

I know its the same questions over again but I just need to be 110% sure

[al dolega]

Since it's not as simple as just knowing the filter size and the size of the mount on the fisheye- you won't know how this lens will look or if it will vignette for sure until you (or someone else) physically puts the cam and fisheye together; thus I don't think anyone here can definitively answer your questions, because nobody here has this camera. the only place you may get lucky with someone else having already tried it is on the www.skateperception.com forums; do some searching on there to see if anyone there has this camera and has messed with the fisheye options yet.

My advice is don't even bother with that Raynox or the Opteka version of it. They will not give you the bubbly fisheye effect you want and their single-optic design is way inferior. Save up the extra $80 or whatever for the 58mm Opteka "Ultra" (MKII clone) and a step ring, and be happy. If you're real worried about vignetting go for the 62mm version instead.