About this deal
As far as I know only 3 different diagonal fish eye lenses designed for fulIframe sensors have been released yet (as of Dec. 2022): the 7Artisans 10mm 2.8, the TTArtisan 11mm 2.8 and this AstrHori 12mm 2.8. They are all similarly priced but their weight and dimensions differ noticeably. This AstrHori one is by far the biggest and heaviest, so I would also expect it to perform the best. The lens seems to be mostly made from metal and all the markings are engraved and filled with paint. A metal slip on lens cap is included as well, it is padded on the inside so won’t scratch the lens.
While Artisans’s 35/2 fairly impressed me, the 11/2,8 is tighter still. Its focus ring turns on a hermetic helical over 90 degrees, that, considering the view angle, is enough to achieve accurate focus from infinity to 0,17 metres. In comparison to a classic Voigtlander, or Leica, the twisting action is positively sandy, but next to a number of twenty year old Zeiss lenses, not to mention loads of lenses from China and Russia, it is perfectly acceptable.
Some practical thinking
Note: I have seen some samples from others on the Web that show that there may be some sample variation. My sample seems well-centered and doesn't tend to smear corners but just blur them. I've seen examples from others where there must have been some de-centering or element variation. I have shortly been using this lens on my Nikon DSLRs and via adapter on a 24mp Sony camera. It is similarly good optically (with less field curavture though) while being much bigger and also more expensive. In conclusion, I was impressed with the new TTArtisan 11mm, especially considering its price. For mirrorless shooters, it can open up some new photo opportunities at low cost, and without taking up much space in your camera bag. As do all lenses of its type, the TTArtisan exhibited darkening of the corners, or vignetting, in this case by about 1.3 stops at the extreme corners at f/2.8, and just less than one stop at f/4. This was easily correctable in raw image processing to make the sky look uniformly illuminated. As with the older full frame fisheyes, this lens can produce very distinctive shots you can't get otherwise. It's also a bit fun to shoot with a lens that produces such results.
If you are looking for a similar fish-eye lens for a DSLR camera, I can recommend the older Rokinon manual 12mm f/2.8 ED, through at double the price.The across frame performance is solid from f/2.8 but stopping down doesn’t change much actually. The midframe gets slightly sharper at f/5.6 and the corners look best at f/11 but in both cases there isn’t that huge difference compared to shooting this lens wide open. The performance is actually similar to what I have seen with the smaller TTArtisan 11mm 2.8 Fisheye.
Le plugin corrige votre image fisheye avec un algorithme complexe en minimisant la distorsion et en maximisant la preservation des détails de l’image When shot wide open at f/2.8 the old Canon 15mm was rife with coma at the corners. The Rokinon 12mm had less off-axis coma than the Canon but it was mixed with some astigmatism and softness. The TTArtisan had worse astigmatism than the Rokinon but crisper star images overall. Stopping down the lenses to f/4 improves the lenses’ performance but some astigmatism remains in the TTArtisan. Credit: Alan Dyer Just like the TTArtisan 11mm 2.8 this AstrHori 12mm 2.8 is a diagonal fisheye, meaning it covers a field of view of 180° diagonally. There are also circular fisheyes that cover only a round image with a field of view of 180° in all directions.Astrophotographers make use of every focal length lens available, with the widest being fish-eye lenses that take in a full sweep of up to 180 degrees (°) of sky. While they are specialized lenses, fish-eyes allow unique images not possible with any other lens, even using techniques such as shooting panoramas. The lens cap on this lens is the usual slip on cover. The rubberized felt inside ring that provides resistance so it doesn't slip off seems to do its job, though I wonder how well it will hold up over time.
In terms of the color scheme this looks very much like a Leica M lens including the famous red dot. Markings are yellow/white (seem to be slightly engraved and filled with paint) and the focus ring has a very nice resistance and turns about 90° from the minimum focus distance of 0.17 m to infinity. Stopped down to f/4 all the lenses improved at the corners, though the TTArtisan still showed some astigmatism. The Rokinon 12mm does provide a slightly wider field of view than the 11mm TTArtisan, despite its 1mm longer focal length. You don’t have to take my word for it either, everyone at the photowalk saw how much I was enjoying myself… and actually, many of them were apparently really quite enamoured with it too. Like anything in photography though, how useful this lens is in practice is going to come down to the individual photographer. But, the real point is, until recently, there was no 11mm f/2.8 fisheye lens in M-Mount… there is now! The TTArtisan 11mm f/2.8 Fisheye might be imperfect, bonkers and really quite niche, but as an M-Mount photographer, I’m a lot more pleased it exists than I expected to be! The video portion of this review along with a different selection of photos and short videos can be seen in this video: TTArtisans 11mm f2.8 fisheye on Leica M10 Fujifilm X-T3 and GFXArchitecture was my next idea to shoot with the TTArtisan 11mm f/2.8 fisheye. I wanted to get a really bloody tall building entirely in frame from an unusually close distance. There’s a tall spire right near my work, so I made a beeline for it. In the end, I found that even as close as maybe 15-20m from the bottom I could get it all in, so I decided to frame in some tree to help draw the eye. I think it worked too. What’s interesting about this shot to me is that at f/5.6 you can see the effect of the softening down one side of the frame is no longer an issue.