Opteka 6.5mm f/3.5 Professional Ultra Wide Angle Aspherical Fisheye Lens for Canon EF-Mount EOS 90D, 80D, 77D, 70D, 60D, 50D,
$301.92
Additional information
| Weight | 362.87 kg |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 5.08 × 5.08 cm |
| Product Dimensions | ‎ 7.62 x 5.08 x 5.08 cm; 362.87 Grams |
| Date First Available | ‎ 5 December 2013 |
| ASIN | ‎ B00KGE4VS2 |
| Item model number | ‎ OP65EOSV3 |
| Manufacturer | ‎ Opteka |
10 reviews for Opteka 6.5mm f/3.5 Professional Ultra Wide Angle Aspherical Fisheye Lens for Canon EF-Mount EOS 90D, 80D, 77D, 70D, 60D, 50D,
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Canuck4Life –
Very well built!
If it was just about build quality then I’d have to give it 5 stars. In fact it could be a weapon it’s so solidly built. It therefore weighs quite a bit but that simply means it’ll last. I wish I knew a little more about photography before I bought this lens. 6.5mm is crazy wide angle!! It sees 180°. The picture quality is not bad & is pretty much always in focus. In fact the focus ring won’t do much to the picture clarity. There is a lot of distortion especially at the edges. However if you use this for landscape & astrophotography it will give you useable pictures. With landscape just make sure you keep it perfectly horizontal and you won’t get as bad distortion at the edges. I have no real complaints when using it for astrophotography. That super wide angle and such short focal length really help while shooting the night sky. Plus since it’s pretty much always in focus you won’t have much trouble in low light like when shooting astrophotography. Oh ya I guess I should have mentioned 1st that it’s a totally manual lens which means that with no electronics it’ll last forever. Sorry about that. Anyway it’s not the greatest lens by any means but at such a low price it really doesn’t matter. I would suggest that if you can find it get the 8mm lens instead of the 6.5mm. 6.5 is just too wide I believe except for astrophotography or when you have a huge landscape you want all in 1 shot, then 6.5mm is fine. It’s up to how you shoot. Hopefully this helps you a little. Happy shooting photographers!UPDATE: I’m terribly sorry but I completely forgot to mention this before for all the new photographers. To get the best of this manual lens and all others use live view mode. Once you have it turned on and have the subject in place that you want to shoot press the zoom button till you get 5x or 10x zoom. Then use the focus ring to simply dial in the focus till it’s clear. Then don’t touch the lens and take off the zoom and shoot. Since it’s such a wide angle lens you won’t see much at all change when turning the focus ring while looking through the view finder. But in live view and zoomed in you’ll notice it slightly change as you turn it. Remember to take off the zoom before you shoot or you’ll likely not get the picture lined up as you wanted. I hope this helps. If you really want to hear from a well known professional photographer who can help you really understand everything there is to photography then go on YouTube and look up mark wallace. I haven’t found a more knowledgeable teacher and photographer than him. For equipment reviews I highly recommend watching tony northrup. Good luck everyone.
NJOceanView –
Stunning Lens For The Price With Some Negligible Limitations
As you may know, a single Korean company produces this lens as well as several other different branded lenses which are all identical. (Other brands include Rokinon, Pro-Optic, and Vivitar.) The other brands state different focal lengths from 6.5mm to 8mm, but in fact they are all the same lens, and I believe tests show the actual focal length to be roughly 7.4mm. Don’t let that concern you: These multiple yet identical products actually provide a wonderful advantage because you can look around to find the best deal of the moment. That’s what I did when I snagged this lens for an incredible 45% discount from its already modest price in a one-day pre-Christmas sale.Importantly, be aware that you’ll only have manual focus. But as you know, your depth of field is much greater the shorter your focal length, so it won’t be a big problem to get the focus right. If you have live view on your camera, use it and multiply the screen by 10X, manually focus based on that, and then go back to shooting regularly. If you still have trouble focusing, the manufacturer recommends shooting at 5.6 or even 8.0, but I had no such issues. Note that in addition to manual focus, you will need to set your aperture settings manually on the lens itself.Here’s the good news for Canon users: If you set your dial to P, you can set your desired ISO in the camera, set the aperture and focus on the lens, and it will work as normal. You can even run bursts in bracket mode. I found that it was helpful to dial EV down by 2/3 or even a full stop to hold the highlights on my particular specimen, but your lens may not require this and I am sure you are checking those kinds of things anyway when you shoot with any lens.I did read that some people had some QC issues with this lens, but mine is crystal clear.I would say the only limitation is that this is not a true 180 degree fisheye. That means that you won’t really get the real fisheye effect unless you think out carefully when you will use it. Otherwise you’ll just get a distorted wide angle that will look too distorted to feel right for wide angle, and too undistorted to feel right for fisheye. So on the day mine arrived, I went to Rockefeller Center. I figured that if I could get the entire city block that comprises the skating rink, as well as the sides with the lights, the complete height of 30 Rock, and pull as far back as I could, then even with this not-fully-180-degree lens I would still manage to get the nice “curl” of the buildings on the left and right sides of the block, which would accentuate the fisheye feel. It worked very well, as you can see in the attached photo. But note that the “floor” of the photo has only a modest curve to it, vis-a-vis a true 180 degree fisheye.As with any fisheye lens, there is no protective UV filter you can use to cover it, so be gentle with it.Finally, this came with a five year warranty! That’s the longest I’ve ever gotten outside of Tamron’s historical six year guarantees they provide on all their products. I’m not sure the other branded-but-identical lenses offer the same guarantee, so do some checking before buying.I couldn’t be more pleased with this purchase, particularly with my substantial discount. I highly recommend this lens noting its minor limitations.
Dalton Brennan –
Fun
Fun tool to have in the bag. Wish it was autofocus although at 6.5mm, you’re not really taking closeups and macros images. Still noticeable unfocused subjects.
Toronto Tonto –
Works for me on 360° VR Photography!
I wish other reviewers would keep some perspective about this lens…it is a fantastic fisheye lens for less than $200 and I am absolutely thrilled that I bought it! I find it precious to see comments from others about how the lens hood is hard to remove or how it’s made of cheap plastic. Try carefully twisting, and try handling your camera stuff with care. My lens hood came off no problem with a careful twist. After cleaning the lens, I put the lens hood right back on because I don’t have a full-frame camera. This is a solid well-built lens and it arrived 2 days earlier than expected.I see a lot of comments about how reviewers regard this product as strictly an amusement lens because of the fisheye distortion, but if like me you are into 360° VR Photography, then a fisheye lens is absolutely essential to reduce the number of shots necessary to render a full 360×180 spherical panorama. My intent was to purchase this Opteka as a cheap intro to fisheye-enabled VR photography and then upgrade later to an autofocus fisheye lens like Sigma or Canon. It turns outs that future upgrade may not be necessary. The image quality I see from this Opteka is as good as I would expect from any lens. I shoot on a tripod-mounted panoramic head at ISO 100 where possible. On the Opteka I set the manual focus ring to infinity, and set the aperture ring to either F.8 for indoor, or F.11 for outdoor. All I then have to worry about is shutter speed to get good exposure. Because of the stability from the tripod, longer shutter exposures are no problem. I even tried shooting at F.22 with an insanely long exposure in low evening light and the photo came out sharp and well exposed!My Opteka fisheye is mounted on a Canon EOS Rebel T6s with an APS-C sensor. The camera is mounted on a Nodal Ninja panoramic head. Since my EOS is not full-frame, I do not see any vignette or chromatic aberration on the captured image. Also because of my EOS’s crop sensor, the actual field of view is closer to 111° instead of the full 180° (the Camera Sensor Scale on my EOS is 1.614). Since the lens is manual, I shoot in manual mode on my camera. I do not see the view on the rear LCD panel since this lens does not talk to the camera. I must use the viewfinder. Looking into the viewfinder, my Canon shows aperture F.00 but I know the Opteka aperture ring is actually setting my aperture (F.8 for indoor, or F.11 for outdoor). I lock my ISO at 100. Looking through the viewfinder I press halfway down on the shutter release and adjust my shutter speed knob until I get a good exposure. I set my shutter release on a 2 sec delay so my hand won’t create any shake. I capture 8 shots at 45° intervals at +35° pitch, and then another 8 shots at 45° intervals at -35° pitch, for a total of 16 shots. When importing the shots into PTGUI I have to specify Lens Type: Fisheye Lens, Focal Length 6.5 mm, and Crop Factor: 1.614. PTGUI has no problem rendering a properly stitched 360×180 spherical panorama.If you are exploring 360° VR Photography, buy this lens.
Dilligan –
Great Lens
This is the perfect way to try out a wide-angle/fisheye lens at a cheap price. It is cheaper than any other wide-angle or fisheye out there.Whoever buys this should be aware that this is a pretty primitive lens; by that I mean that the fstop mechanically controlled by a ring on the lens (So apperture priority will not work because your camera will not know what f-stop the lens is at) and there is no autofocus or stabilization.This is NOT a bad thing though. It is easy to use the lens. Simply put your camera on the mode labeled P, (if you have canon, that is. I’m not sure if that is different for nikon or sony) and it will work just like apperture priority – the shutterspeed will be chosen automatically.When it comes to the focus – most of the time everything is in focus because the view is so wide, though things can be blurry sometimes, and it is easy to forget to focuse because everything looks clear when you look through the tiny viewfinder. The lens has a guide on the focus ring based on the focus distance in feet from the front of the lens. Just guesstimate it and it will be fine. Especially if you shoot on f8 to lower your depth of field. This isn’t really the type of lens to do shallow depth of field tricks on so I would suggest have the f number be as high your lighting will permit (as small of an apperture as possible).Pros– Build quality: the thing is completely metal. Rare is it you find a lens so cheap with a metal mount.– Price: Fantastic if you wanna try wide-angle/fisheye and you don’t know if your ready to invest a lot in it.– Shoots great.Cons– Heavy: It’s all metal. I don’t mind it, and it doesn’t really have much effect on my tripods, but some might care about that.– Lens Hood and Cap: They are really thin junky plastic. With the abnormal lens shape, you cannot use a standard cap, so the one that comes with it is basically all you got and if you break it your screwed. The cap clips onto the hood and not very well. If the hood cracked off or something, your lens cap can’t go on anymore. And the hood attachment is abnormal too so you can’t replace that either.– Primitive: I explained above. It is only a minor issue.– Prime: this doesn’t bother me either but it is a prime lens. Meaning it is wide and only wide.I know I listed more Cons than Pros, but the cons were really nitpicky. The only thing I personally have a real problem with is the lens hood and cap. The Heavy weight is just a result of good build quality and the primitivity and prime-ness are a result of keeping the price low.It really is a rockin awesome lens and I recommend it to anyone who wants to try some fisheye shots. It’s not the best fisheye out there but it is freakin good and cheaper then most lenses in general.
Andy Dextrous –
A Few Issues But Now Staple Part Of Kit
I took a chance on this as I don’t do normal when it comes to photography and I wanted to see if I could get a fisheye lens for the Canon 90D that went beyond Canon’s own 8mm. It was inexpensive so I took a chance on this.On memory I believe another review here mentioned that part of the lens broke after a short period of usage. I also had an issue where the rear silver plate (the part which slots into the camera) fell off after a few test sessions. However this was resolved simply by re-affixing with super glue and since then there have been no other issues and it’s worked a dream. This lens offers close to 180 degree photos. From experience to date I have noticed a reduction in quality when using in slightly darker indoor spaces but external shots have been excellent. Initial issue aside I am extremely happy with this lens and it has been used on many occasions. Very happy with this especially at the cost and since the repair it’s been used on countless occasions.As others note it’s a manual focus but it really is incredibly easy to use – you would hardly know the difference. In my book a bargain!
Art H –
Lens failed after 60 days – Opteka comes through
I have had this lens about 2 months. I’ve used it 4 or 5 times. The results are quite good for a lens retailing for under $200. As others have noted, the build quality is not superb, but it felt and functioned like a reasonably sound piece of gear, though the f/stop ring has been “sticky” since I got it.This Tuesday morning, while shooting the eclipse of the moon, I found that the internal rectangular mask had rotated about 50 degrees. This results in part of the image being blocked from the camera sensor, and renders the lens useless.If the lens had not failed physically, I would have rated the performance a 4 as good-for-value performance for a low cost lens.I’ve contacted the seller, but so far based on this failure my purchase has been a waste of money, and rates a 1.UPDATE: Two weeks and two emails later, the only response from 47th Street Photo has been one automated response that they were “closed for a holiday”. Disappointing. I have now contacted Opteka to see how they honor their 1 year warranty.UPDATE: I gave up on 47th Street photo (they never did answer my queries.) HOWEVER Opteka warranty service answered my email within a day. I provided proof of purchase and had an RMA the next day. About 10 days later I have a replacement lens, which works great. I’m increasing my review to 4 stars.UPDATE: Sept 2019 – I am still happily using this lens for night photography. In Lightroom I use the Rokinon 14mm/f2.8 lens correction option since there is no Optika setting – it works fine. Because of the f2.8 aperture it is possible to get reasonably exposed images in 15-25 seconds, keeping the star-trail problem to a minimum on my canon 5DSR (full frame). I’ve attached two images from a recent trip to Glacier National Park as examples.
Alberto Gemin –
A perfect creative lens for curious or creative characters – drawbacks are minimal
There are many reviews already, I am writing this because before buying I could not find definite answers to the questions I had.1. Focus – yes, it’s manual, but unless you are shooting something really close you set it to infinity and you’re done.2. Aperture – it’s manual, but the camera will set shutter speed and ISO if you want to, so it behaves exactly like an automatic lens on Aperture Priority (Av) mode. The only difference is that instead than turning the camera wheel to set the aperture you need to turn the lens ring. Half press the shooting button and the camera will calculate and display shutter speed and ISO. If you are not familiar with Av you can put the camera on Auto, set the aperture ring to 3.5 and shoot away. If you are in full daylight you might want to reduce the aperture to 8 or above.3 – Field of view – this is a fisheye, no questions. I don’t know whether it is a 6.5mm or 8mm (usually Opteka, Rokinon, Vivitar and Samyang all market the same lenses, and there’s a 8mm for all these other brands that looks suspiciously similar to this Opteka 6.5mm, although they cost more) but it has a diagonal field of view of 180 degree, which means that on APS-C sensors it is a full-frame fisheye rather than a circular fisheye. The distortion is massive, and that is a good thing. If you have a full-frame camera then (I think that) this turns into a circular fish-eye. From what I read the problem with the older model was that the lens cover was getting into the picture. This one you can remove.4 – Fun factor – You can’t beat this quality/price ratio if you want to experiment with a fisheye. Comparing this lens with some high-brow glass is a losing battle, but consider that, unless you are a professional (in which case why are you reading this?), a fisheye is a very specialised lens that you’ll use rarely: does it make sense to spend a thousand dollars or more? Also, it takes a lot of technique and creativity to take good pictures, so before you are pushing the technical limits on this lens there’s a lot of experience you will have to gain in understanding what looks good and what doesn’t on a fisheye.Am I happy with this one? Oh yes.
Ezra –
I’m really having fun with this lens…
I have a Canon t6i and typically use and love shooting a 10mm-20mm lens but thought I’d try something a little wider. I figured I’d roll the dice for $160 and give this lens a try. I thought I really wouldn’t use it much so I didn’t want to plop down a lot of cash. I’ve had it for about a month now and not only love it but use it all the time. Let me break it down #1 for $160 it’s a great lens and my only regret is that I didn’t buy it sooner. #2 It is fully manual so you have to manually focus it, but since it’s so wide you will find that you will pretty much use two focus points: 1 ft for everything between 1 and 5 feet away from you, or infinity for everything else. Pretty much everything is in focus using that approach so you really don’t have to mess much with the focus and my concerns about not having autofocus turned out to be a non-issue. #3 It has a manual aperture so the Auto, Program, or TV mode on your camera won’t work. Again just set your camera to AV and set the aperture with the ring and it all works very easily and well. And of course you can shoot manual #4 it is a fisheye so if you will get bending in the picture. If you keep the camera parallel to the horizon on a landscape shot you won’t notice it and you will get some amazing wide angle shots. If you point the camera up or down, or you are close to walls you will see the bending but it’s actually kinda cool. I included some photos where I had the camera horizontal and where I tilted it for a curve effect so you can see for yourself #5 The optical quality is fine. Sure it’s not a $5,000 lens but for image quality it’s just as good as any lens I have that I’ve paid $1,500 or less for. #6 Construction, aperture, and focus rings are solid. The lens cap is a little tricky to figure out but once you do it’s easy to take on and off and it stays on firmly. I wear my camera on a belt holster so losing lens caps is a concern for me. This one stays on just fine.
Rakesh Koul –
Poorly built and impractical hood, even with APS-C cameras.
Updated: 3/19 with few picturesI added few pictures to compare this fisheye lens with a Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM Lens at 10mm setting. See attached to compare the difference in how wide the 6.5mm lens gets Vs. 10mm. The picture quality I got with the 10-18mm across many pictures taken side by side was sharper than with the 6.5mm fisheye lens. Camera used was Canon 70D APS-C.The pictures have some Lightroom tint effect. So that is not natural to the pictures.~~~~~~~~~1st Day experience:-Fish eye experience worked fine. No issues. Great 180-degree-ish view.-Got shipped in 2 days with prime, no issues there.Observations:a. I am using it with APS-C Camera 70D. And the hood interferes with the picture. I see the hood in the picture on all 4 corners, the top right corner interfering the most. I thought this lens was supposed to work fine with APS-C cameras with hood on.b. Removing the hood is easy, but that defeats the purpose of the hood. Because of the bulged shape of the lens, I would ideally want the hood to stay ON.c. As many people have said, hood is ultra-flimsy. I am surprised somebody made a hood like that.d. I do not really see the focus does anything. May be I haven’t tried enough. Stuff seemed to be mostly in focus most of the time – stuff 2m away, or stuff at infinity. Super-Close up things seemed to be out of focus, but then I couldn’t get them in focus by moving anything beyond the camera itself.Most likely keeping the lens, but not yet super-excited.