7Artisans APSC 7.5mm fisheye for Z-mount - anyone tried it?

I am curious about the new (II) version of this lens (with Nikon Z-mount) because it's US$135. It's manual focus. Anyone tried either this or the earlier version?

I use it (in the original E-mount version), very occasionally, with my Sony A6300. It's so wide that lighting a shot involving it is quite challenging, at least with the SeaFrogs strobes I've been using until recently. I have Retra Pros now, and I'm going to Richelieu Rock/Surin next week, so I'll give it another try. Here are some shots that I took with it in the Philippines.

52 minutes ago, Barmaglot said:

I use it (in the original E-mount version), very occasionally, with my Sony A6300. It's so wide that lighting a shot involving it is quite challenging, at least with the SeaFrogs strobes I've been using until recently. I have Retra Pros now, and I'm going to Richelieu Rock/Surin next week, so I'll give it another try. Here are some shots that I took with it in the Philippines.

These shots look interesting. However, not typically fo rfisheye, the corners are blurred. What dome/extension and f-numbers were you using?

Wolfgang

29 minutes ago, Architeuthis said:

These shots look interesting. However, not typically fo rfisheye, the corners are blurred. What dome/extension and f-numbers were you using?

 

Wolfgang

SeaFrogs Salted Line housing with 4" dome, no extension - basically this package. The lens was set to f/8 - it being manual, there is no way to change the aperture while the housing is sealed. Blurry corners might be an artifact of defishing, or missed focus, as the sardines were moving back and forth quite rapidly, and I don't have a lot of experience with manual focus underwater. Note that straight out of the camera, the corners vignette a fair bit; an uncorrected image looks like this - I push the distortion correction slider in Capture One to 75 to get rid of those.

Edit: the vignetting is produced by the housing, not the lens - outside the housing it covers the whole sensor.

Edit2: For the reference, here is a test shot in a pool, where I had time to properly focus: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AupWSggdlFYKjtRKSZUy2NnGcqQvew?e=judgtb

1 hour ago, Barmaglot said:

I use it (in the original E-mount version), very occasionally, with my Sony A6300. It's so wide that lighting a shot involving it is quite challenging, at least with the SeaFrogs strobes I've been using until recently. I have Retra Pros now, and I'm going to Richelieu Rock/Surin next week, so I'll give it another try. Here are some shots that I took with it in the Philippines.

I will be at Richelieu next week on Smiling Seahorse, 9-13th. Is that the trip you are on?

Yep, that's the one! I've been on Koh Tao for two months now, doing mostly muck diving - I want to get my fix of wide-angle before I go home Looks like we'll be meeting in person in just a few days.

3 hours ago, Barmaglot said:

I use it (in the original E-mount version), very occasionally, with my Sony A6300. It's so wide that lighting a shot involving it is quite challenging, at least with the SeaFrogs strobes I've been using until recently. I have Retra Pros now, and I'm going to Richelieu Rock/Surin next week, so I'll give it another try. Here are some shots that I took with it in the Philippines.

Where do you set the focus?

I have problems with the corners when I use the 4 inch dome (I use the sony 16mm + fisheye adapter or the samyang 8mm fisheye and I'm not happy with the corners (despite my low expectations)

would the 6 inch dome be better?

I wound some double-sided tape around the focus ring of the lens and friction-fitted the zoom gear from 16-50mm on the tape; this lets me control the focus underwater. I'm using focus peaking as a general guide to see if I'm in focus or not, obviously with mixed results. With Samyang 8mm there's a native focus gear available from SeaFrogs, but I got the 7Artisans lens before that was the case, and I don't care to spend $300 on another niche lens.

The 6" dome has too long of an extension to work with Samyang 8mm f/2.8 or 7Artisans 7.5mm f/2.8. I believe it works with Samyang 8mm f/3.5 (an older, physically longer lens), but I've never tried it myself. Tokina 10-17mm with Metabones or MC-11 is another option to use with 6" dome, and there's a guy on Scubaboard who has designed and 3d printed a zoom gear for it, but that lens + adapter is another $500 which I'd rather spend on something else. Most of my wide-angle dives are with Sony 10-18mm and 8" dome.

19 minutes ago, Barmaglot said:

I wound some double-sided tape around the focus ring of the lens and friction-fitted the zoom gear from 16-50mm on the tape; this lets me control the focus underwater. I'm using focus peaking as a general guide to see if I'm in focus or not, obviously with mixed results. With Samyang 8mm there's a native focus gear available from SeaFrogs, but I got the 7Artisans lens before that was the case, and I don't care to spend $300 on another niche lens.

The 6" dome has too long of an extension to work with Samyang 8mm f/2.8 or 7Artisans 7.5mm f/2.8. I believe it works with Samyang 8mm f/3.5 (an older, physically longer lens), but I've never tried it myself. Tokina 10-17mm with Metabones or MC-11 is another option to use with 6" dome, and there's a guy on Scubaboard who has designed and 3d printed a zoom gear for it, but that lens + adapter is another $500 which I'd rather spend on something else. Most of my wide-angle dives are with Sony 10-18mm and 8" dome.

Thanks. I've considered the zoom gear for the Samyang 8mm f/2.8, but I'm not convinced that the more precise focusing would solve the corner issues. The close focusing capability of this Samyang lens is not that good, so I set it to minimum focus distance, but I'm not that happy with the image quality (underwater).

55 minutes ago, Barmaglot said:

I wound some double-sided tape around the focus ring of the lens and friction-fitted the zoom gear from 16-50mm on the tape; this lets me control the focus underwater. I'm using focus peaking as a general guide to see if I'm in focus or not, obviously with mixed results. With Samyang 8mm there's a native focus gear available from SeaFrogs, but I got the 7Artisans lens before that was the case, and I don't care to spend $300 on another niche lens.

The 6" dome has too long of an extension to work with Samyang 8mm f/2.8 or 7Artisans 7.5mm f/2.8. I believe it works with Samyang 8mm f/3.5 (an older, physically longer lens), but I've never tried it myself. Tokina 10-17mm with Metabones or MC-11 is another option to use with 6" dome, and there's a guy on Scubaboard who has designed and 3d printed a zoom gear for it, but that lens + adapter is another $500 which I'd rather spend on something else. Most of my wide-angle dives are with Sony 10-18mm and 8" dome.

Are you happy with the results with Sony 10-18mm and 8" dome?

7 hours ago, gobiodon said:

Are you happy with the results with Sony 10-18mm and 8" dome?

I'd say it's reasonable. A Nauticam housing with a fine-tuned dome position would likely produce better results, but I'm not prepared to make the investment. You can see test results of 16-50mm and 10-18mm in various SeaFrogs ports here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AupWSggdlFYKjtRFXM2KS9gqFcyRpQ?e=EKbl0R

However, the recent discussions on WWL-1 are making me consider selling the 10-18mm and domes and getting a short macro port and WWL-1 to use with 16-50mm.