Disclaimer: This article discusses my initial impressions about a product I recently purchased. I have received no compensation for this piece and all views expressed are my own.
As my wife and I prepare to embark on a much-needed Hawaiian vacation for our 20th anniversary I've spent quite a bit of time reading about our destination and thinking about the amazing views I'd like to try capturing. I love shooting wider angles so my standard walk-around lens on my Nikon Z6II is the Nikkor Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S. It's hands-down one of my favorite lenses that I've ever used and seldom leaves my camera body. For these island vistas, though, I thought it could be really cool to go even wider and perhaps add a little creative flair with a fisheye lens.
With our departure only days away my options for getting a fisheye lens for the Z6II were pretty limited but then I remembered that I could rent lenses from my local camera store! I looked at their inventory and saw that they had a Nikkor AF 16mm f/2.8 D available for our trip dates. This is a slightly older lens and has the F-mount but I have the FTZ adapter for a few of my older lenses so that wasn't a problem. Excited about the prospect I went to the store and quickly had my dreams crushed.
Because I haven't rented from this store before they wanted to charge a $1000 "deposit" but because my trip was longer than a few days the "deposit" wouldn't be remain as a pending charge but would actually be charged! I have no issue with them charging a deposit but never have I ever been expected to pay more than the value of the item. What's more is that the two-week rental fee itself was only $90! If my card was going to be charged that much money why wouldn't I just keep the lens or buy a new one outright instead of dealing with the hassle of getting a refund on that amount?
Deflated, I left the store without a fisheye lens but on the drive home that thought of buying a lens kept nagging me and evolving. When I got home I looked up how much the lens I tried renting would cost used/like-new. Everywhere I looked showed it going for around $400. Much less than the rental "deposit" from the local store.
From there I thought about this particular lens a bit more. This older lens is essentially a manual lens on the FTZ adapter. Even at $400 there's a good bit of electronics I'll never be able to use so what actual manual options are there? The number of Z-mount fisheye lenses is miniscule. There are only a handful of options available and no first-party fisheyes from Nikon. This was disappointing but I did manage to find a few but one in particular caught my eye.
The Lens
The 10mm f/2.8 Full-frame fisheye from 7artisans looked really promising. Prior to this, however, I'd not heard of 7artisans but at ~$250 it was certainly worth a closer look. I'll admit to being apprehensive about whether a less expensive 3rd party Chinese manufacturer would be any good, but I was quite pleasantly surprised.
The reviews not only for this particular lens but the entire 7artisans lineup all seemed to agree that 7artisans know what they're doing. The themes I found were that the lenses were well built and ridiculously sharp for the price. Several reviewers noted how heavy the lens was since its body is an all-metal construction rather than the cheap plastic that's so common in these products.
As expected for reviews specific to this lens I saw a number of images that looked exactly like what I was hoping to see so I decided to take a chance on it. Afterall, $250 for the manual lens on the Z-mount is better than $400 for an effectively manual lens on the FTZ adapter, and oh so much better than a deposit that's worth more than the lens itself. What's better is that Amazon had them in stock and would have one to me in the standard two days.
These days I tend to shy away from Amazon for most things but given my tight timeframe I went for it and Amazon delivered. The lens arrived late this afternoon and I couldn't wait to try it out.
Unboxing
What immediately struck me as I opened the shipping box was how well packaged this lens was. Sitting on top of the box was a cloth case sitting neatly on the lens box. The lens box was a clean white cardboard with some red highlights and the lens specs clearly presented. Opening the box was effortless. This already didn't feel like a cheap Chinese brand.
Inside the box was some good cushioning foam, the lens instruction manual, and the lens itself packed in what appears to be a decent quality leather case. (Truth be told I'm a bit concerned about the glue job on top of the case but time will tell how that holds up.) The case zipper glided easily and revealed the all-metal lens wrapped in some plastic.
The reviewers I relied on when looking into this lens were really not kidding when they said it's heavy. The lens spec sheet says it weighs 570 grams which is roughly 1.25 lbs. Saying this lens feels solid is an understatement. I clearly haven't experienced how this will hold up over time but for now I'll say it feels as sturdy as any Nikkor lens in my collection.
Lens Performance
With the unboxing I was starting to feel pretty confident that I'd made the right choice in adding this lens from 7artisans into my arsenal but a heavy lens in a nice box doesn't mean anything if it doesn't produce decent images. I mounted the lens to my Z6II and started shooting. Let it be said here that I've definitely not explored this lens fully since as I was multitasking with firing up a Big Green Egg!
To be honest, several of my first few images were less than stellar. I'm attributing this not to the lens but to my being out of practice with a manual lens. As I shot more frames the manual muscle memory gradually returned and the image quality improved. Had I been less distracted with the grill I'd likely have shot some better images but I was rushing and the initial subjects were selected out of convenience. Upon reviewing the image set on my laptop display and running several of them through some basic adjustments I'm actually pretty happy with them overall.
Sample Images
Old Tree
After I ordered the lens I was sitting in a lawn chair and looking up at this tree. I said to my wife "I think the first thing I'm going to shoot with the new lens is this tree" and so I did.
I didn't get the focus quite where I wanted it but I was really impressed not only with how much of the tree the lens captured but how it also got part of the house and garage!
My Front Yard
There's some really nice landscaping in the front yard. It came with the house and we haven't messed it up too much yet. For this I thought it would be nice to see the fisheye enhance the curved sidewalk. I was impressed by the effect there and also on the magnolia tree coming in from the side of the frame.
My Back Yard
We got our patio extended just in time for vacation. Try as I did to capture it with the wide-angle mode on my phone I was never quite able to capture it in context with the rest of the patio and house. The 7artisans fisheye did it beautifully.
Big Green Egg
This is the grill I was working with tonight. 7artisans says that the fisheye minimum focus distance is 0.17 meters or a bit shy of 7 inches. I didn't measure quite how close I got to the thermometer but the numbers were perfectly clear as was the text on the front of the grill.
Conclusion
I think I'll be struggling with getting back into the habit of using a manual lens for a while yet but I have to say that I'm really happy with what I captured with my first few attempts with this lens. It captured even more than I'd hoped for and the fisheye effect is intense. As of now I'm quite satisfied with my decision and am really looking forward to shooting more with it in the coming days. I'm especially excited about those island vistas.
