Fellowship of the fisheye

[Groucho]

I had some time to kill while Mrs Groucho and Jack were riding Test Track, and I spent a bit of it taking fisheye photos of the Mission Space facade.


Mission Space by Groucho Dis, on Flickr

 

[DisneyChristmas]

Bump - I love this string!

 

[Shutterbug]

so I really want a fisheye lens. I really like the tokina but that runs $579.00.
I am also hoping to get a tokina 11-16 canon mount when it finally becomes available again. so its hard for me to justify $579.00 for the fisheye.

Now am wondering about the Samyang/Bower/Rokinon fisheye lens.
I know B&H has the Bower version for $349.00, Amazon has the Rokinin branded version for $264.00

Any thoughts about that lens? Is there really no difference between brands?

 

[C&B Young]

Now am wondering about the Samyang/Bower/Rokinon fisheye lens.
I know B&H has the Bower version for $349.00, Amazon has the Rokinin branded version for $264.00

Any thoughts about that lens? Is there really no difference between brands?

That lens comes with a number of different names on it - Samyang, Rokinon, Bower, Vivitar, Opteka, they're all the same lens. I recently picked one up off ebay and I'm enjoying it so far. Still learning how to use it, but it's a lot of fun. The lack of auto focus is not a concern, as the depth of field is so large that everything is pretty much in focus anyways.

 

[Groucho]

My understanding is that Samyang is the original designer of the lens, and it is then rebadged by a variety of other companies. Not unlike the Vivitar lenses that were popular in the manual focus days, which were all made by other companies (Tokina, Kiron, etc.) (Vivitar still doesn't design their own lenses.) So far, I haven't heard much in the way of negatives about their fisheye. It probably doesn't matter much whose name is on the front. (In the Pentax world, I think some are auto-aperture and some aren't, but I don't think that's the case in the Canon mount.)

I use the Pentax 10-17mm, which Tokina licenses and sells under their own name. I like it a lot (and do think that the zoom can be useful) but if it were to be destroyed somehow, I would probably grab a Samyang just to save some money.

Speaking of fisheyes, here's another since the thread's been fairly quiet!


Mission Space by Groucho Dis, on Flickr

 

[photo_chick]

This thread gave me an itch to get a fisheye for my DSLR. The Samyang (I got the Rokinon branded one) is now on it's way to my house and should arrive in time for my birthday next week. Providing Texas thaws out.

I was torn between it and the Tokina, but my printer died so cost won out.

 

[Groucho]

Welcome to the "fellowship", I'm sure you'll have a fun time!

Still quiet here... unlike when this photo was taken!


Test Track on-ride by Groucho Dis, on Flickr

 

[Shutterbug]

This thread gave me an itch to get a fisheye for my DSLR. The Samyang (I got the Rokinon branded one) is now on it's way to my house and should arrive in time for my birthday next week. Providing Texas thaws out.

I was torn between it and the Tokina, but my printer died so cost won out.

Yeah thats what I just ordered yesterday too!

I wanted it for this weekend so I paid extra for one day shipping so it would arrive today. According to UPS, it made it as far as columbus ohio then didnt get any further.
I called Amazon, they also showed it stuck in columbus, so they refunded me all the shipping and handling. So I guess I will just have to wait to start shooting

 

[Uncle Greg]

A Civilized ceiling by Uncle_Greg, on Flickr

 

[Groucho]

I'm pretty happy with this one but it has been getting below-average views on Flickr so far. It's probably one of those shots that you have to see in higher resolution.


Animal Kingdom Lodge Kidani Village, view from savannah by Groucho Dis, on Flickr

 

[Gdad]

I'm pretty happy with this one but it has been getting below-average views on Flickr so far. It's probably one of those shots that you have to see in higher resolution.

Or maybe that you have posted 2500+ pictures on Flickr in 3 months. I try to look but I can't keep up!

 

[Gdad]

Two for today- Samyang 8mm


AK Gear 3x HDR by ~Life by the Drop~, on Flickr


Epcot 3x HDR by ~Life by the Drop~, on Flickr

 

[Groucho]

Or maybe that you have posted 2500+ pictures on Flickr in 3 months. I try to look but I can't keep up!

Who me?

Yeah... I'm trying to limit it to about 10 pics a day or less, but I know that's still a lot. I'm uploading them as I finish processing them and I'm going through 6,700+ pictures so there's going to be a decent number when all is said and done.

Besides, those of us who aren't locals have to take a bunch of pictures at once; we can't just grab a few new pics every few days. Once I finish this trip, these will be the last new Disney pics that I post for a year or two! I do still have a couple other trips' worth of pics that aren't on Flickr yet though.

I have some observations on Flickr which probably are best for another thread, but it is sort of interesting see what gets views and what doesn't. I'm also relatively new and have few contacts compared to some of you who have been at it for a while, so I mostly have to rely on groups to get any views... but every once in a while, one or two pics get picked up by someone on Tumblr and suddenly the views go way up. Yesterday I had two older pictures make the rounds on Tumblr and the views on them went through the roof (relatively) and I had my first day with over 1,000 views, which is way above what I usually get. Kind of amusing.

Anyway, back on topic... another slightly modified shot.


Test Track sign by Groucho Dis, on Flickr

 

[Gdad]

Some people treat Flickr like a photo hosting site and some like a social network site- I'm probably somewhere in the middle. FWIW there are plenty of non-locals who spoon out one Disney picture per day for a whole year between trips. I'm not that patient so I guess it's good I get over there a few times a month.

I agree with you on the views thing though- a very ordinary picture of my SIL got like 7000 views in one day a few weeks ago for no aparent reason- Flickr lists them as from "Unknown Source." In one day it became my most viewed picture of all time.

 

[WDWFigment]

Some people treat Flickr like a photo hosting site and some like a social network site- I'm probably somewhere in the middle. FWIW there are plenty of non-locals who spoon out one Disney picture per day for a whole year between trips. I'm not that patient so I guess it's good I get over there a few times a month.

I agree with you on the views thing though- a very ordinary picture of my SIL got like 7000 views in one day a few weeks ago for no aparent reason- Flickr lists them as from "Unknown Source." In one day it became my most viewed picture of all time.

I definitely am more on the end of someone who treats it as a social networking site. We go a few times per year, and I post around one photo per day. If you're looking for views, comments, or favorites, posting as many photos as Groucho has done is counter-productive. You also have to add contacts, favorite photos, and comment to establish yourself.

Initially, it might seem like "comment trading" but that's how things go if you want exposure.

 

[Groucho]

I'm somewhere in the middle, too - I already have my own site to host all my own pictures, so it wasn't really that (plus ones from my own site have the exif data intact!) but running one's own site means that you get fairly few views and virtually no comments, so I guess I'm primarily in it for the feedback. It's interesting to see what gets views and/or comments; what I think is good in my collection is not always what other people like! But again, I'm still relatively new and get few comments. Would I get more if I trickle in just one or two pictures a day? Or does it help to have a "body of work" there to view? I barely have time to go through my photos and that's about all I get a chance to do on the PC right now (hence so few posts on here lately), I'm not going to worry too much about it. If I get comments and views, that's great; if not, my life will go on. The pictures are the same whether they get zero comments or 50!

I probably also do more than some because I'm not spending a lot of time laboring over any one particular photo. I almost never spend more than 5 minutes on a single image, usually less than that. (The cynical ones can now yell "yeah, and it shows!") That is one advantage of not being interested in HDR - it's a lot faster to not do it! (And, with this sensor, I have little need for it; you can get almost all the detail you would want in one single image and it looks more realistic than a tone-mapped one.)

Oh, and yes, I'm not that patient either - when I have a picture done, I want to stick it online right away! Maybe when I'm old and gray (or at least, don't have two small kids), I'll go back and work on specific images to try to bring out their best and re-upload them, who knows... maybe some day!

 

[Groucho]

I definitely am more on the end of someone who treats it as a social networking site. We go a few times per year, and I post around one photo per day. If you're looking for views, comments, or favorites, posting as many photos as Groucho has done is counter-productive. You also have to add contacts, favorite photos, and comment to establish yourself.

Initially, it might seem like "comment trading" but that's how things go if you want exposure.

I'm sure that's true. Then again, the cynical part of me doesn't want a comment just because I gave someone else a comment, but I do recognize that someone is more likely to actually write down what they think if they see you commenting on their stuff.

I have done a little bit of commenting but right now, my main time on Flickr is managing my uploads. Once I get caught up on the current trip (which'll be a few more weeks - I'm on day 5/12 now), I'm going to try to spend a little more time checking out (and commenting/favoriting) other people's stuff - but again, I'm going to try to be honest about such things and not do them to just try to build up views/comments for my own stuff. I'm not dissatisfied with how things are going so far.

edit: I'm sure adding fun title and long descriptions would help me, too - but again, there's extra tricky when uploading a lot of photos.

 

[Todd_H]

^^Click for flickr

 

[cpbjgc]

I like the bursts on the lights Todd! Did you use a filter to capture that or were you able to tweak that in post processing off your long exposure. Just curious as they are very sharp.

 

[Todd_H]

I like the bursts on the lights Todd! Did you use a filter to capture that or were you able to tweak that in post processing off your long exposure. Just curious as they are very sharp.

Thanks! No filter or post processing tricks used for that effect. In this case, it's the result of stopping the lens down to f/16 that produces the star bursts in the lights. The # of aperture blades in your lens dictates how many "star points" you will get... also if you use an odd or even number aperture for the shot. If you use an odd # aperture (small aperture such as f/11 or f/13), you will get a number of star points that equal the number of aperture blades in the lens (e.g. 7 blades = 7 star points). However, if you use an even number aperture (again, small apertures like f/16 or f/22), you will get a number of star points that is double the amount of aperture blades. In this example, I used f/16 and my lens has 7 aperture blades... that's why you see 14 star points.