Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

image quality is good, great addition with the Nikon D7000.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

explore great photos with 180 degree fisheye

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

Got this fisheye as a Christmas present for my D7000. Produces great images, without too much distortion, though the wide angle can make it difficult to focus at times. Very satisfied with performance.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

Great lens. Well made. I used this lens for my trip to CA, and it did a great job for shooting the beautiful coastline. Drawback is that it's a little heavy. But in general, I liked it.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

Not very expensive but takes gorgeous pictures

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

For this money, I don't thinks exist something better. It reproduces good colors used with a D7000. Contrast is very good. No purple fringe detecter, even in really high contrast tests.
Of course it lacks AF, and in my version, any comunication with the camera. Anyway, D7000 can work with manual lenses, so it was not an issue.
Only drawback, minimum focusing distance is a little too long (30 cm compared to de 14 of the nikon 10.5), but nothing I can't live with...

Conclusion: I'll buy it again without doubt. And I'll try the 35 and 85 of the same brand.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

This is an incredibly fun lens, and it works flawlessly with my Nikon D7000. Set the maximum aperture in the settings menu, and it even meters in A mode.

If your camera doesn't support non-CPU lenses, you may be better off waiting for the updated version of this that contains a chip. Otherwise you have to use full-manual mode.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

I use fisheye only in 1% of my shooting time and therefore I was looking for some inexpensive lens.
The Bower 8/3.5 seems like a right choice for me.
For such a short focus length the manual focusing is very forgivable.
This lens is not a sharp king but nobody expect it from fisheye.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

Just wrote a long review about this lens and BH decided to throw me an error and lose it all.. awesome. so 1 star to you BH... What the [*].....in short. Good lens. however the Fstop reading on the CAMERA is incorrect.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

This cheap little fisheye is amazing for the price. It is solidly built with an all metal housing. It is a bit heavy, and I'm fond of that. It is a fully manual lens, You set the zoom and aperture re. However it seems to have a tab that seems to allow for a camera to control the aperture. However my camera does not use it. Over all once the lens is stopped down the images are very sharp for the price. If you shoot in dusty conditions be ready to constantly clean this lens. The bulging front lens is a magnet for dust. And with almost unlimited depth of field, you will see it in your photos.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

This is a great lens. You about a 180 degree field of view from side-to-side and somewhat less from top to bottom. The lens is curved, so there is no way to protect it (no lens protectors available) from the elements, so you just have to make peace with that. The lens cap stays on, though all my gear is in ziploc bags because I frequently shoot at the beach & need to keep my equipment clean & dry so I don't know that the lens cap would stay on if my gear wasn't in ziploc bags, but it seems like it would stay on. It also comes in a nice velvet carry pouch.

When shooting into the sun (and with a 180 field of view that's a lot of the time) I'm frequently near f/8 or smaller and there is no ghosting to speak of & flaring is very pleasant creating a nice sun with "sunbeams".

If you've never used a fisheye before, these are interesting lenses. It really distorts distance - things that are close are huge, things that are a bit further are tiny. You can almost bump into your subject trying to get appropriately close. It's weird taking your eye away from the camera & realizing that you're practically right on top of them, but still get a head-to-toe field of view, and as another reviewer pointed out, be ready to get your own feet in a lot of shots. Distortion is less once subjects are a few feet away - at least outdoors it seems that way... this lens is a great alternative to stitching together photos for a panorama.

Indoors you get the whole room in the picture- or the half the room the photo is pointed at & really does a great job of giving you a sense of everything in the room which is a really fun effect since even your own eyes don't see things in quite that way.

You also almost never have to focus it, but it is completely manual (manual focus, manual aperture) and may provide exposure data on some of the lower-end Nikons that don't work with manual aperture lenses - so you just have to take test shots to get your exposure information. The depth of field is huge so I'm almost not even aware of the focus ring, even at relatively large apertures.

If you're into the fisheye thing, or think you could be, for this price this lens is a no brainer. It's not an every-day lens (at least not for me) but it is a great "special effects" lens.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

I can't speak for other Fisheye lens from Nikon or Sigma but this one does a solid job for the $300+ after tax I paid or it.It's all manual settings but it's worth it, because of the manual setting I'm able to use all my other lens in Manual mode. Before this lens I used to always use one of the auto settings (A,S,P setting), but now I'm not afraid to switch my camera to all manual mode.Picture quality is great so long as you don't zoom in on your 10mp image. If you need some examples of how photo's are going to look review my Flickr page here: [@] no photoshopping just flickr's re-sizing.One last note, the lens have a manual focus mode but setting it to anything but infinite don't seem to make any difference or at least anything noticeable in my opinion. 90% of my shots are set to infinite focus mode.One more last note...You can but I don't recommend using this in low light settings. As soon as it starts get dark outside, the only things that come out good are the setting sky everything will show up in pitch darkness. You will see some examples on my flickr page.Camera Spec:Nikon 3000

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

I am a "beginner" photographer and I wanted to have some fisheye shots, but I didn't require the $700+ Nikon lens. This one does the job great!

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

This affordable fish-eye len is a great buy. The len is very sharp (especially at f/22) and robust. The cap could be of a better design but I get used to it. There is no auto focus but the dof is so huge that it is not a real problem. You have to pay attention when shooting object closer than .5 m.

Shooting in A mode make it easy to use except for flash photography...

The 180 degre field of view is awesome!

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

Some difficulties to put on the camera. Attention to exposure !! Need some pictures to be familiar with. Poor focus adjustment.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

I was traveling to the big sky country of Montana, USA and wanted a lens that would help me capture what my eyes behold and not spend time stitching pictures of landscapes. But oh boy, did the lens outperform its fame.
Not only did it capture landscapes but it gave a whole new perspective to looking at alternative portraits. Have tons of awesome photographs to look at now.
But have to be very careful while using this lens because of the huge bulge of the first glass element. No scratches yet but i am scared there will be some soon. Will update on that.
Anyone who knows the rules of thumb about aperture, ISO & shutter speed or has a light meter and can live with manual focus - this is a lens for you. Cheap and probably the best.
I did notice a softness in the pictures but i guess it's me missing out on focus.
But given the cost of its nearest competitor i say it is worth every penny spent.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

On my Full Frame you only get a small pic. but on my nikon 3100 it works well. I think it is ok for the money. I recomend it if you just want a fish eye and dont want to spend so much.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

I use this to take close ups of people to make them look distorted. Probably good for some types of sports photography like skateboarding. Also good if you need to be wide in a small space. If you don't want your subject to look distorted this lens is not for you.

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

I like this Lens

Comments about Bower SLY 358N 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens For Nikon APS-C Cameras:

This lens is a great value and brings a whole new perspective to your photos. All the controls are manual, so be sure you know how to set your exposure. It's a little hard to tell if you have things in full focus, but being manual cuts the cost in half so I'm not complaining. It doesn't seem to work with my pop-up flash for indoor shots, but it pops fine one with my mount flash. All in all this a GREAT find!