There are a wide variety of Fisheye lenses, From Century to Opetka from Clip on to Bayonet.
All these factors can leave you asking.. "Which is right for me and my set up?"
Well we are here to help, So post up your questions and we'll be happy to do our best to assist. Here's a quick rundown of common fisheyes.
Kenko .43x 37mm- your basic cheap fisheye for smaller consumer cameras. $28 on BH Photo/Video Also available in an Opteka Version.
Century Optics .3x 37mm Ultra Fisheye (Known as the Baby Death) best fisheye you can get for entry level cameras. Quality glass, great distortion, amazing lens. $300 on BH Photo/Video Also available in an Opteka version for $100
These "Baby Death" lenses are also available in 43mm (specifically for the Canon HV series) on BH and other sites.
Now for the bigger lenses for the higher-end cameras. Like the smaller ones, the Century Precision Optics fisheyes will be of higher quality and better distortion. However, you can get the Opteka version (if you haven't figured it out by now, Opteka makes a cheaper, lower quality version of each lens from Century)
Century Optics MK1- this is THE best fisheye setup you can have when combined with a VX1000. You can buy em new off Amazon for about 700 dollars or off ebay, skateperception, etc.
For the VX series you can also get Opteka lenses. I've used a VX1k with a 52mm Opteka and it was decent, and really cheap. If you don't have quite enough to go all out for the Mk1, the Opteka 52mm is a good alternative.
For the VX2k and 21k the best option for you would be a Century Optics MKII. You can also use an MK1 intermediate or a modded MKI. None of these are quite as good looking or wide as the VX1kMKI but nevertheless will produce a great image.
Now if your fisheye doesn't fit or you want to make it look better there are a couple things you can do. First you can use step up or step down rings if your camera's threads aren't exactly 37 or 43mm. Then, if you think there is too much vignetting (those black corners you see, also known as just "vig") you can zoom SLIGHTLY or if you have a spacer, take it off. Likewise, if you don't have any vig and you want the image to be wider, you can add spacers until it looks good.
If you have anything to add here, please do! There is a ton more information about fisheyes for cameras that I haven't covered yet, so feel free to contribute in a reply.
Subject: Fisheye Lenses 
Tue Dec 28, 2010 6:44 pm
