D100 full frame fisheye

I'm getting closer to a real full frame fisheye. Raynox offers a.24x fisheye supplementary lens for video cameras that's almost perfect. It has a 62mm thread-on so it mates up to the 20mm lens. Here it is:

It allows focus down to 1" without diopters and is very nicely made. Trouble is that it's too wide in combination with the 20mm.

The result could be cropped but a better solution would be to use the 24mm. I don't have a 52mm-62mm ring (yet). I'll try it soon. Raynox makes a smaller, cheaper lens with a 58mm thread. It's also a little narrower at .3x so I don't know what combination produces the best result. Here's a similar shot pointing into the sun:

The combination is small enough to house but it won't fit through my Nexus throat. It's just close enough that a trip to the machine shop would fix it. Until then here's a simulated underwater photo:

You think a 24mm would do the trick Craig? Never mind, I just re-read your post.

I've got the port extensions to give it a try.

Cheers

James

I bet the Aquatica throat is big enough. I'll have the extra parts on Monday to try the rest of the configs. If you want to try to house it, James, let's do it. Maybe my S&S will do it, too.

I got invited on another free dive trip this weekend, but I turned it down. I need to concentrate on getting my computer at home back up and running after my HD crash.

So my next trip out is two weeks from Sunday and I'd love to give it a try Craig!!!!! I bet I could get a 24mm lens to use also.

Cheers

James

I have the 24mm. Just need the 52->62 ring. I hope the good combination will be the 24mm with the .3x. Smaller, lighter, cheaper and fits in my port! We'll see.

Looked in the box and there lied an adapter ring. Here's the 24mm plus Raynox .24x:

This appears to work and the FOV is around 170 degrees. Nearly perfect and no clipped corners.. There's some moderate CA but it can be corrected. Focus is good nearly to the glass. As a bonus, there's a Lee filter holder that fits PERFECTLY. You can use Lee filters above water with this combo.

and the bad news is $? Did you try it on the 12/24????

The 12-24 has a 77mm thread. I don't have an adapter for that.

Curiously, with the 12-24 this might just be a full frame that zooms to circular! Will be pretty big to house, though.

B&H sells this lens (Raynox DCR-FE180PRO) for $400. The smaller Raynox is under $200 but not sure that works yet.

Been away from the computer for the weekend and come back and everything is sorted.

Very impressive. I would imagine that on a blue ocean background the CA would be acceptable as it is. I think that 170 degrees is wide enough. I think the problem will be getting it to fit in ports. Subal's ports only just take 77mm diameter lenses.

Craig, you have you get this in the water!

I bet the Aquatica throat is big enough.

I measured the clear opening on the throat of the Aquatica D100 housing. It's approximately 10.6 cm.

Then Aquatica users can fit this combination. It requires 100mm. Hopefully you'll have a dome that works as well.

I'll be trying the smaller Raynox that requires 95mm. If not I'll look into a custom port or some machining on the lens.

Hi!

This is a sample I took recently with my Olympus E-20 and the Raynox converter:

At 37mm SLR equivalent it's full frame.

I did most shots at 35mm SLR and patched the corners in PhotoShop.

Image quality is quite good (5 lenses in 4 groups, 750g weight!) but it's very hard to get no reflections, esp. on land.

I'm not sure if it's distortion or a blur out of focus close to the corners. It doesn't realy matter unless you're doing architecture. It's nearly 100mm in diameter so it might get tricky to get it through a port hole.

With my housing I have to mount the camera first and then screw on the lense. The dome port therefore comes in two parts. There is a thin rim to have a better grip on the lens that could possibly be removed. This would result in a diameter of about 93mm.

Helge ;-)=)

I tested the smaller Raynox adapter today but was disappointed. It worked with the 24mm but required diopters (+10!) to focus and had a restricted field of view. The 20mm vignetted slightly. CA was worse than with the larger .24x. Looks like I'll have to make the larger lens work instead.

Hi!

The DCR-FE180PRO works without diopter in my housing. Focusing is ok, even with the bad AF the E-20 has in low light conditions. Maybe, because the dome port is tailored for this lens. I had troubles only once. It was a shallow dive in a cave. The AF focused on bubbles on the dome.

If you don't need a 0.24 but only a 0.8 factor with visibly less distortion, you could use the Olympus WCON-08B. It also has a 62mm screw mount at the lens side and a 105mm filter screw mount.

I didn't use it uw because it leads to 28mm SLR only with the E-20. It might be a good combination with the 12-24 Nikkor to compensate for the chip-factor without cutting off corners or bending lines too much. The optical qualities of the Olympus converter are far better than the Raynox. It might be caused by the difference in the factor.

Helge ;-)=)

I don't have any technical info to add, but I do think that this is a very important thread, and we are priviledged to be able to share and learn from Craig's and Helge's experiments. Keep up the good work.

Alex

Lots talk over on Dpreview about a Nikon announcement forthcoming, and a coontributor claimed that a 10.5mm 2.8 lens is amongst the new products. While he didn't say fisheye - I sure hope that it is on the way. For now, my 12-24 should keep me satisfied!

Thanks for the research Craig.