Nikon 8-15mm in the house!

[mackman 3]

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

[adamhanlon 0]

 

 

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....

[Matty Smith 1]

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,

 

 

 

 

[Matty Smith 1]

Here's the corrected and sharpened edge detail.

 

 

Cheers,

[adamhanlon 0]

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

[TimG 62]

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?

[Tom_Kline 137]

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.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2017 by Tom_Kline

[Matty Smith 1]

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

[adamhanlon 0]

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

 

 

 

[Alex_Mustard 0]

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

[Alex_Mustard 0]

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

[Tom_Kline 137]

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

 

 

 

Edited July 9, 2017 by Tom_Kline

[Cerianthus 55]

Canon 8-15mm as Tom mentioned

 

 

Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk

[Phil Rudin 423]

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.

 

 

Edited July 10, 2017 by Phil Rudin

[Alex_Mustard 0]

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

[Walt Stearns 51]

Being a DX shooter (D500), I will be interested to see how it will hold optically when used with a Kenko 1.4X Pro 300 Teleconverter, which will essentially turn the 8-15 into a 11.2-21mm fisheye zoom.

[markdrayton 12]

After playing with the new lens on my D500 on land for a couple of hours this afternoon I can add the following:

• Unlike on Adam's Seacam setup, with Nauticam, the 10-24 zoom gear is a few mm too long to get the teeth to mesh in the housing. Other gears in my collection don't appear to be easily adaptable either, so it looks like waiting for Nauticam to produce a definitive gear or making something custom.
• As expected, the lens isn't physically compatible with Nikon's own 1.4x Mk III TC.
• The lens will work with my fairly old version of the Kenko 1.4x Teleplus Pro 300 and as Walt suggests, this allows a full zoom range without any cut-off/vignetting on the DX sensor and presumably a maximum angle of coverage only marginally less than the Tokina 10-17 at its widest. However autofocus using this TC and D500 is subtly less good with the Nikon lens. AFS on back button appears to work well with both lenses. AFC works OK with the Tokina with just occasional and minor initial hunting. On the Nikon lens, AFC also works but with significantly more frequent and rapid hunting before the focus settles at least in indoor light. As far as I can tell at the moment, final focus accuracy is OK. I don't get the impression that this is a deal breaker for most circumstances when this combination is likely to be used, but it could be an issue if using the TC to extend reach for rapidly moving pelagics? I haven't so far compared optical quality.

Mark

[markdrayton 12]

Further land-based observations on the Nikkor 8-15 Fisheye used with and without a teleconverter on DX (D500):

• A Nauticam zoom gear for this lens is now available - but there isn't currently one listed for the lens with teleconverter
• Nauticam and Zen now have port extension recommendations. Of interest to Tokina fisheye upgraders, the relative differences from those recommended for the Tokina 10-17 vary with the specific dome. For instance Zen recommend a total of 30mm extension for the DP-100 compared with 15mm for the Tokina, while Nauticam recommend the same 20mm extension with their 210mm acrylic dome as for the Tokina. For those upgrading from a DP-100 with integrated 15mm extension, the best solution seems to be the removal of the integrated extension and reassembly of the dome assembly using shorter screws (easy), then using a Nauticam 30mm port extension.
• My earlier experience using the Nikkor 8-15 with an elderly Kenko 1.4x Teleplus Pro 300 was possibly flawed as that particular TC became progressively dysfunctional in autofocus and aperture control and had to be replaced by a new Kenko 1.4x Teleplus Pro 300 DGX. The new TC has so far autofocussed impeccably on land with the Nikkor fisheye - scarcely different from using the lens alone.
• Optically on land, the Nikkor performs significantly better than the Tokina across the zoom range with vastly less Chromatic Aberration and better sharpness both at the centre and edges. These comparisons have been limited to the f8 and f11 apertures I typically use behind domes.
• With the Kenko 1.4x teleconverter the zoom range usefully becomes 11-21 with complete coverage of the DX sensor throughout the range. Fully zoomed out on DX, the angle of coverage is just slightly less that that of the lens on its own at maximum full coverage of the sensor (about 10mm zoom). Fully zoomed in to 21mm the angle of coverage (reach) is greater than that provided by the Tokina on its own but less than that provided by the Tokina plus TC (24mm).
• Comparing the 2 fisheye lenses optically on land in combination with the 1.4x TC, the Nikkor still performs substantially better than the Tokina across their zoom ranges for Chromatic Aberration, central and edge sharpness. At 11mm and f9.0, the Nikkor is very sharp centrally but the edges are soft. At 21mm and f9.0, sharpness is still very good centrally but is also good at the edges.
• The focal length of 11mm can be achieved either by using the Nikkor alone at mid-zoom or by using the lens with 1.4x TC fully zoomed out. Both deliver excellent central sharpness but while with the lens alone edge sharpness is good, with the TC the edges are quite poor.

DX land-based Conclusions:

• The Nikkor lens is a substantially better performer than the Tokina both with and without a teleconverter
• The TC works much better optically with the Nikkor, at least peripherally, when it is zoomed in. Edge performance suffers when zoomed out. The same is probably true of the Tokina but performance is poorer with this lens throughout the zoom range and across the image.
• It is a viable strategy to optimise the Nikkor's zoom range for DX cameras by using a Kenko 1.4x Teleplus Pro DGX teleconverter only as long as good edge performance when zoomed out can be sacrificed. Otherwise it may be better to reserve this combination for use only when fully zoomed in.

Caveat:

• How these observations and conclusions translate to use behind domes with their curved and close virtual images remains to be explored.

Mark

[Walt Stearns 51]

Hi MarkD, as I am still waiting for delivery of mine, I much appreciate the amount of work you put into the info you provided. Once I have mine in hand I will be seeing what this lens does behind my Zen 170mm and DP-100mm Minidome, and possibly behind Nauticam’s 140mm fisheye dome port as well. I already have the Kenko 1.4x teleconverter, along with both a20mm and 30mm set of Nauticam extension rings. All I need now is the zoom gears for the lens to work with and without the teleconverter. Then things should get interesting.

[Alex_Mustard 0]

I continue to be concerned by the level of flare that the 8-15mm gives sometimes, when shooting towards the sun. This photo was taken in shallow water in the Caribbean - and the sun + flare etc is making a big mess of the frame. This was shot at the 15mm end, but I was using it without the port shades and the lens hood, because I had a zoom gear on it.

 

This is just a screen grab from Lightroom - but you get the idea.

 

 

I only used the lens on one dive on this trip. Are others, who are shooting the lens more than me, finding this problem SOMETIMES when using it without the lens hood and port shades?

 

Alex

[adamhanlon 0]

I have found the same problem.

 

 

This was with the 8-15mm at 15mm the lens did not have shades on it.The port is a SEACAM Fisheye Port (FP) also with the shades removed.

 

Settings were 1/250@f/8, ISO 250 on a Nikon D810

 

I originally thought this might be internal reflection due the lack of shades? Certainly though the flare circle at the bottom is simply lens flare and not to do with the shades...

 

I found that I had to be careful framing but if I was, the lens seemed to be able to cope with high contrast scenes quite well.

 

 

Adam

 

 

[phxazcraig 101]

I originally thought this might be internal reflection due the lack of shades? Certainly though the flare circle at the bottom is simply lens flare and not to do with the shades..

 

 

That dim circle is a reflection of the sun reflecting off the sensor and again reflecting back onto the sensor from some lens elements. You need to have a very bright image and a very dark area where the reflection ends up. It's pretty normal with digital (sensors are far more reflective than film), and I see it with other lenses. Particularly the 14-24 f2.8, which is somewhat of a flare magnet.

[Alex_Mustard 0]

That's interesting and concerning, Adam - that your photo has exactly the same flare in the same place as mine. Alex

[markdrayton 12]

Alex. I have recently taken about 560 images underwater with the Nikkor 8-15 fisheye on the DX format D500, around 230 of which contained partial or full sunbursts or dappled light. Most were taken with a 210mm Nauticam acrylic dome but a few were with a Zen DP100 dome and a few again were taken in conjunction with a Kenko 1.4x TC. Focal lengths varied through the DX applicable zoom range and there are a mixture of horizontal and vertical format shots. None of the images show any hint of the flare seen in your and Adam’s shots. Many of the sunburst shots were taken fairly shallow – a few at 3m. or slightly shallower. Probably the relevant difference is that using DX, I didn’t need to remove the dome shade but I didn’t use the lens hood.

 

Mark

[Tom_Kline 137]

Alex's shot has interesting colored vertical stripes at the top. The only thing arranged in rows or columns is related to the sensor, e.g., microlenses. Maybe worth testing with more camera models (different sensors). Topside as well to see if this is and interaction with the dome port such as reflections, e.g., off sensor through lens then off port back into the lens.