Review: Opteka Fisheye "Lens"

Once in a while over the past few months, I've been playing around with this, the "Opteka HD² 0.20X Professional AF Fisheye Lens". The first thing I need to do is clear up a few misleading points in the product's description. First of all, this isn't a lens. It's an adapter that screws onto a lens the way a filter would. Second, the product description lists a number of Canon cameras this product is compatible with (all of them). This product isn't just compatible with any particular brand of SLR because it's not a lens. It'll work with any DSLR as long as you have a lens you can attach it to.

The Amazon.com listing for this adapter claims the regular price is $200, but I've never seen it selling for anything other than $50. I'm guessing the regular price is just to make the actual $50 price tag look like a good deal. With the often praised Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens selling in the $250-$300 range, maybe $50 is a good deal.

My first observation when handling this adapter is that the build quality is pretty solid. It's constructed of metal and feels durable. It comes with two rubber caps for each end of the adapter and the rear one isn't always cooperative. Also included is a small drawstring pouch to keep the adapter in, which is a good thing because I'm not sure I trust the rear cap to stay on in my camera bag!

The adapter is designed to work with 52mm lenses and comes with step-down rings to accommodate lenses with 55 and 58mm filter threads. This isn't really an optimal solution as if you go too wide while using the step-down rings, the rings will start to get into the frame. In fairness, though. If you've gone that wide, you're probably getting a lot of lens barrel in your frame as well and are working with what is probably an excessively wide "focal length".

Too wide? Yeah, probably.

So far, I've used this adapter with two of my lenses. The standard 18-55 Canon kit lens, and the relatively new 40mm "pancake" lens (a great lens that I highly recommend for anyone shooting with a crop sensor). I'm assuming using the adapter with my telephoto lens would be pointless and ridiculous, so I'll probably do that eventually as well. I've had much better results with my 40mm than the kit lens. The adapter claims to have 0.2x magnification, which should turn a 40mm focal length into 8mm. I haven't done any thorough testing to see how accurate that claim is, but in my experience so far, it seems accurate.

Now to the really important part. The image quality is decent, if you don't mind cropping. The picture tends to be reasonably sharp in the center of the frame, but loses anything resembling sharpness as you get closer to the edges, no matter how small of an aperture you use.

Rough around the edges.

In summary, this adapter might be a good choice for someone on a budget who can't afford to shell out $250+ for an actual fisheye lens. Or maybe for someone who wants to play around with the style of photography but isn't ready to invest in an actual lens. In the end, though, you're going to get what you pay for and the results might be acceptable, but they won't be as good as they might be with an actual lens. If you're using lenses with a filter thread larger than 58mm, you've probably wasted your time reading this review, as you've spent enough on photography gear already that another $200 won't kill you. Just go buy the Rokinon.

Summary of summary: Can't/don't want to spend $250+ on a fisheye lens? Consider this adapter! Otherwise, go for the Rokinon 8mm lens.