I know a few people on this list have 10.5's on order so I'm happy to report that mine arrived today. Nikon is now shipping them in the US.

I finally got round to taking the 10.5mm to the pool last night. I was very impressed, and it worked very well behind my standard Subal FE Dome. I am really pleased with how wide this lens is - and can't wait to get it in the sea - especially to do some split levels.

The images are nothing special but in a very murky and dark dive pool I am very encouraged. First shot is of me - sorry - (shot at 1600 ASA at f2.8 1/60th sec without flash). The other shot of a diver was taken shot at 400ASA f9.5 very slow at 1/3 sec (with a single subtronic alpha - couldn't be bothered to take both to the pool).

Alex

I have only had a chance to try my 10.5 above water but, like you, I'm very impressed by it's performance. The images are very sharp, and the angle of view seems to be even wider than my 16mm on a film body.

I think the real question will be how will a D100 or S2 handle the wide dynamic range that such a wide angle lens is going to present. I anticipate that I'll probably have to modify my usual wide-angle technique to look for scenes with flatter overall lighting.

I guess we won't know until someone actually gets one of these lenses underwater in real shooting conditions.

Good points. I totally agree. I know UWP editor Peter Rowlands had his out in Manado last week and I hope he will put some images in the next issue of the mag. Due out tomorrow I think.

I am hoping that the wider angle of view of the 10.5mm will make sun spots smaller in the frame and therefore less distracting compared with 100-120 degree coverage lenses on DSLRs. Fingers crossed!

Here's an interesting link regarding performance on the 10.5mm fisheye:

http://www.greenpix.net/HTMLpages/GeneralHTMLpages/Wide.html

Looks like Nikon Capture 4 is a very useful component for effective use of this lens.

Very interesting post, Steve. The loss in coverage is significant - but still greatly exceeds the 12mm. I would be interested to see what loss in image quality there is towards the edge of the frame. But it looks very powerful particularly for wrecks/people shots.

Considering the similarities between the 10.5mm on Nikon DSLRs and the 16mm on Nikon Film SLRs do you think that it might be possible to use the same conversion on a slide taken on 35mm with the 16mm lens?

Alex

The loss of coverage is due to preservation of aspect ratio. I borrowed the original and corrected images to show this:

First the original corrected image (with black sides added):


My quickie conversion:


My attempt is not an exact match but it's close enough.

The outer edges will get quite soft in a 180 degree correction like this, so you may choose not to preserve the whole width. Still, sticking to 3:2 is entirely arbitrary but common. The crappy quality of my demo here is caused by the smearing of the JPG artifacts so it shouldn't be considered representative.

As far as defishing a slide taken with the 16mm---absolutely!

I would add that when I defish I do it interactively. I don't feel bound to make the image technically correct (that is, I don't use presets calibrated with a grid). Knowing what the right settings should be is valuable but it's the image itself that counts. In this example the dominance of straight lines would force you to defish it completely. That's not always necessary underwater.

Hello Lionfish, i've had my lens for about two months now and it is a delight to work with the lens / capture 4 software combination, altought when you use the correction it does cut off a chunk of your image so be wary of croping to tight, the edge are a little streched out and soft, and the coverage goes down to a 110 degrees, (close to what I am using on my F90x / 14mm combo). But I am looking forward to my trip to Venezuela next week to shoot some wreck and coral head up close (the close up capabillitie of this lens is amazing).

Ciao !

Jean Bruneau

P.S. Eric and James got some of my photos taken with this lens 3 weeks ago, what's up guy !

Hi Jean,

Hang in there! Eric is back and has your photos - hopefully posted soon.

Thanks!
James

Alex, unfortunatly the software does not support any other lens combination, or for that matter non Digital or non Nikon digital camera, bottom line is you need a Nikon digital body, that lens and that sofware to make it happen, it denote a trend I have noticed in the last few years, the manufacturer are going integrated system more and more, kind of sad for us user but market wise a good decision for them.

Ciao !

Jean Bruneau

P.S. I quote your stuff on ambient light all the time in my workshop, good work dude !

Defishing is quite easy with other software, though. Grasshopper ImageAlign for example. I see no reason to tie yourself to a proprietary one-lens, one-camera solution when you can do it for anything. Panotools is the standard (and free) although I find it unreliable to automate via actions for some reason.