Nikon 8-15mm in the house!

So I spent a while in the pool with the lens yesterday:

I will publish the full findings in a proper review, but the short conclusion is that it will focus on the dome port with both D810 and D500. Port was a Seacam Fisheye Port (160mm).

Another interesting fact is that even with the D810 and a 160mm dome, the corners were sharp, even at f/8

Crop of the above image:

I shot it with and without a 20mm extension. I still need to analyze the images carefully, but my initial impression is that that with this port, there was no quality improvement with it, and the vignetting was worse. Please bear in mind that this is a preliminary finding!

I want to do a little more real work testing. The lens is going to the Red Sea with Alex Mustard (well actually with Nick More, who is meeting Alex out there) soon and I may save the review until after the Wetpixel Whale Sharks trip at the end of July/early August.

For those of you that are early adopters, the quality of this lens in both build and image seems to be very good!

Adam

Hey Adam, thanks for the quick preview. I'm not sure what you mean by "focus on the dome port." Do you mean it focuses on the inside surface of the dome or it focuses correctly with a dome port on? -Ryan

Apologies for the jargon!

It means that it will focus on objects literally on the dome port. The test chart above was pushed up against the glass of my port...

Adam

I noticed on Facebook that Aquatica has a the zoom gear ready and a fellow Australian Matty Smith is going to be shooting the 8-15mm on his D810 over the next few days and interested in how it shoots in the field. Impressed with how quickly housing manufacturers can develop a new product for an item released only a few weeks ago.

As a primary wide angle shooter and shooting in DX I would also like to see how the new 8-15mm compares with the 10.5mm Nikkor FE and Tokina 10-17mm underwater. Most often for me corner sharpness isnt a major requirement when shooting fisheye as often its just negative space with a blue or black ground which doesnt show or need sharpness. Its the quick focusing pin point accuracy on the subject in the middle which is required.

Looking forward to the future indepth review of this lens to see if it has potential for me,

Regards Mark

The Wetpixel lens is currently in the Red Sea with Alex Mustard and Nick More, so I would expect some updates to this thread when they get back. As far as I know, it will be used on the D5 and D500. I have used it a fair bit on the D810.

It will be interesting to know how they get on with zoom gears. I know Nick uses a Nauticam housing and I would imagine Alex will be using a Subal. As I mentioned, my (Seacam) zoom gear for the Nikon 10-24mm works perfectly with the 8-15mm. It may be the case that Nauticam and Subal versions will fit. Kudos to Aquatica for getting a product released so fast too!

Look forward to seeing some warm water images!

I will be taking the lens with me to Mexico for the Wetpixel Whale Sharks trip at the end of the month, so will get a good grip on its big creature/blue water potential.

Adam

Did you figure out whether it's worth using a 20mm extension when shooting this lens on an 8.5" dome? Thanks and see you soon! -Ryan

 

 

I shot it with and without a 20mm extension. I still need to analyze the images carefully, but my initial impression is that that with this port, there was no quality improvement with it, and the vignetting was worse. Please bear in mind that this is a preliminary finding!

I don't have an 8.5" dome but have used a 9" one. I can't see any quality difference, but have not really pixel peeped yet...

I would like to try it with a 15mm or 10mm extension....

Hey I've been shooting with this lens a bit in Aquatica Digital 9.25" & 4" ports on my Nikon D810 and both ports have gone really well. I didn't use any port extension in the 9.25" and used a 16.5mm (0.65") extension with the 4" port.

There were some small aberrations but nothing Adobe Camera Raw 9.10.1 couldn't quickly put right by checking the box "Remove Chromatic Aberration Box" I'm still experimenting however, also going to try it on the Nikon D500 tomorrow and write a bit more about it.

A few of my results below.

9.25” Glass port with port shade removed, it’s necessary to remove the shade because it will otherwise be included in the frame! No port extension, Aquatica zoom gear and inward strobe lighting on short strobe arms.

The reason for the inward lighting is because I needed to be very close to my subject, almost touching, to get a frame filling shot. To light it I literally needed to direct the strobe light through the glass port whilst being very careful not to get the strobes in shot. I also needed a very clean port inside and out, that strobe light is very unforgiving at highlighting dust and smears.

This selfie picture of the rather frisky octopus shows the effect of the full frame fisheye and highlights the use of the inward lighting. The suckers were gripping my port and were lit quite nicely. Exposure was 1/15^th sec, F13, ISO 64.

A 100% crop from the edge of the frame is very good in my opinion. There is a little chromatic aberration evident in the backscatter as shown above but that is only to be expected with such an extreme lens. This I quickly sorted out by checking the "Remove Chromatic Aberration Box" in Adobe Camera Raw version 9.10.1 and a little post process sharpening got me a nice crisp result across the frame. I'll post that pic later as I've run out of upload space.

Cheers,

Here's the corrected and sharpened edge detail.

Cheers,

Hi Matty,

The blueish fringing on the edge of the "circle" seems quite bad, even after post correction. This has been noted before.

I wonder if this is a lens issue or a dome one?

I note that in my topside shots with this lens it is quite pronounced, which would suggest it is a lens issue.

Adam

Hi Matty,

 

The blueish fringing on the edge of the "circle" seems quite bad, even after post correction. This has been noted before.

 

I wonder if this is a lens issue or a dome one?

 

I note that in my topside shots with this lens it is quite pronounced, which would suggest it is a lens issue.

 

Adam

Can this be tuned out by increasing the CA setting manually in LR?

The blue fringe is an attribute common to circular fisheye lens images. I provide a possible "fix" with this image. The Lightroom settings to do this are shown in a separate pic. One pic (black background) shows the same image without the fix. This shot was done with the Canon 8-15.

Cool, Thanks for the tip Tom, great pic BTW.

Tom-was that shot with the Nikon 8-15mm?

Thanks for the tip, it is a good one. I guess we could create a circular overlay in Photoshop and make any image a circular one! Perhaps that is what we should do...

The only time it would be problem would be for competitions.

I have a (limited) selection of circular fisheye shots taken with the Canon 8-15mm. I used the Zen 4" port with a removable shade and a Canon 6D in a Nauticam housing:

I think it is subjective (and it is a blue water shot) but the edge fringing seems better?

Personally, I am not a big fan of circular fisheye so the issue (if it is one) is not a big deal for me. I am more interested in the sharpness of the new lens and its close focusing ability. Matty-I think your shot shows just how close it can focus perfectly!

I will be interested to hear how Alex and Nick got on with it is the Red Sea, and am excited to be taking it to Isla Mujeres with me at the end of the month.

Adam

I hope to be able to pull together a selection of shots and some thoughts for Adam to publish tomorrow.

Regarding the blue ring at 8mm - it is not an UW effect. Here is a split I shot with the lens at 8mm - and the blue ring is as prevalent above water as below.

Taken with Nikon D5 and Nikon 8-15mm at 8mm. Subal housing, Zen 230 dome, 20mm port extension.

Alex

That photo was also shot using Retra's new strobes.

Canon 8-15.

Using LR I was able to apply the identical fix to a large number of images in a couple of seconds by synchronizing the settings after checking off only the needed adjustments in the popup menu. One could maybe tweak the settings I used to try and crop less out of the edge. Agreed that this fix is not needed for blue images other than for getting a white rather than black background.

BTW I seem to recall that a square crop was done first - it has been a while since I did the fix! A square may be needed to get a circular vignette.

Looks like one cannot "like" an administrator's post.

T

Tom-was that shot with the Nikon 8-15mm?

 

Thanks for the tip, it is a good one. I guess we could create a circular overlay in Photoshop and make any image a circular one! Perhaps that is what we should do...

 

The only time it would be problem would be for competitions.

 

I have a (limited) selection of circular fisheye shots taken with the Canon 8-15mm. I used the Zen 4" port with a removable shade and a Canon 6D in a Nauticam housing:

 

130731-ahanlon-7284.jpg

 

I think it is subjective (and it is a blue water shot) but the edge fringing seems better?

 

Personally, I am not a big fan of circular fisheye so the issue (if it is one) is not a big deal for me. I am more interested in the sharpness of the new lens and its close focusing ability. Matty-I think your shot shows just how close it can focus perfectly!

 

I will be interested to hear how Alex and Nick got on with it is the Red Sea, and am excited to be taking it to Isla Mujeres with me at the end of the month.

 

Adam

 

 

 

Canon 8-15mm as Tom mentioned

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While Tom's method removes the blue ring (CA) I like the black background better than the white. In Lightroom I made the normal corrections one might make like cropping to square, color, etc. This image was taken with the Sony A7R II, Canon 8-15mm at 8mm, metabones adapter using Zen 100mm port and Nauticam NA-A7II housing. Once I had made some corrections I used the Lens Corrections menu in the manual setting and simply moved the lens distortion to -12 to remove the blue ring. The Lightroom lens correction setting for the Canon 8-15 zoom completely distorted the image so I never use that. I did not have the aromatic adoration box checked in the lens correction panel. More than one way to deal with this issue and not remove the black background.

An area of interest for me was how this lens handles the sun. The ability to capture the sun well is a major reason why I would favour the Nikon 16mm over the Sigma 15mm fisheye.

With the 8-15mm at the 15mm end - with dome shade and lens shade attached - the lens captures the sun pleasingly. OK, there is no clear sunball in this shot - but the sun's rays are handled very well.

However at the 8mm end, with the dome and lens hood’s removed (as they must be), I got obvious flare shooting into the sun. This is the flare spot at the bottom of the frame:

This is a flare reflection from the main sunball at the top of the frame. Here is the whole frame. In this case the flare spot was easily cloned out, because of the nature of the background in this particular frame.

I have only used the lens on a couple of dives, so far, and want to do more testing (or hear from others on what they are finding) before coming to a firm conclusion.

Alex