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Later on in the evening, the TTArtisan 11mm f/2.8 fisheye lens was great for capturing the atmosphere of the event too. I’m not sure I would use a lens like this to photograph an event professionally, but I could definitely see me using this lens for this sort of thing again. It was undeniably fun, and despite the whakyness, I can’t help but really like the result – and taking them was a lot of fun too, especially after a drink… As this is the first fisheye lens we reivew here it might make sense to have a short look what differentiates a fisheye lens from a normal ultra wide angle lens. For it's reasonable price, this lens is probably a bargain. I have no problems recommending this lens to someone who's interested in exploring the full frame fisheye world. Just realize that (1) you'll be manually focusing, (2) you have to account for field curvature with some subjects, and (3) you'll going to want to do both distortion correction and chromatic aberration correction of the final images. Whatever the limits of my abilities, the fun-factor of using a fisheye is unlimited. This bad boy covers 180º, with a bright 2,8 maximum aperture. Talk about fun. I’m sure loads of you out there know what it’s like to shoot fisheye lenses. Move a little and the entire frame changes. Sag a shoulder slightly and the horizon bolts down. Because it covers 180º and does the bulbous fisheye thing, you have to remember a few things: 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!
A fish-eye is also great for taking in the Milky Way from horizon to horizon and for circumpolar star trails. I’ve also used such lenses during total solar eclipses to capture the passage of the Moon’s shadow across the sky. I have shortly been using this lens on my Nikon DSLRs and via adapter on a 24mp Sony camera. It is very good optically while also being very big and more expensive. TTArtisans ( different from 7artisans) currently has three lenses for Leica M-mount and a new 50mm f/0.95 lens coming soon. I haven’t used this one. In terms of weight and size it sits inbetween the aforementioned TTArtisan and this AstrHori.Nevertheless, I personally think the usefulness of fisheye lenses is a bit limited. They are mostly useful for creating 360° panoramas, funny animal pictures/portraits and sometimes astrophotography. You can still use them for landscape photography – as some of the sample images may show – but it is not that easy to find compositions that actually work, so I would not recommend a fisheye lenses to anyone who is just starting with photography. Open full-size image in new tab. Same image at f/5.6 with 200% zoomed-in crop boxes showing star performance. Not much improvement to stars over f/4. Open full-size image in new tab. Commentary 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. Summary: Available only for mirrorless cameras, the TTArtisan 11mm fish-eye works well for several types of astrophotos, and is affordable enough to include in the kit bag. 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.
So, from a strong central region, even wide open, we get to what I'd call a fair far corner wide open. That's actually a positive statement for a lens this wide. I've seen fisheyes that tend to not just go a bit blurry, but go all smeary as well. This one goes from acuity to slight blur wide open as you move from center to corner. There does seem to be axis-dependance to the blur, so I'd say there's likely astigmatism involved out in the corners. I don't see a lot of coma. My second outing with TTArtisan 11mm f/2.8 fisheye lens would prove to be a lot more entertaining. I decided I wanted to push the envelope of conventional fisheye photography (if there is such a thing) and take some portraits whilst out on a photowalk. The results speak for themselves. The lens balances quite nicely on the Z5/Z6/Z7 bodies. Even on the Z50 it only moves the center of balance a bit forward of where I'd want it. That's mostly because it's a short lens, only about 3.25" (80mm) to the front of the glass. By f/5.6 I'd say the corners get to good. Given that the DOF markings on the lens would suggest that 2 feet to infinity would be in acceptable focus at that point, it's quite possible to get edge to edge results that look very good with this lens. I'd say that the lens is best at f/5.6 whether you're using it in close or with subjects at far distances, so there doesn't seem to be any optical favoring with distance that we see in some lens designs. The wide-angle design is also complemented by a bright f/2.8 maximum aperture, to suit working in available lighting conditions.
The TTArtisan 11mm F2.8 Fisheye (300 euros) is a Compact stereographic fisheye with very good sharpness on the entire frame when used outdoor at F5.6 , and even excellent at F2.8 in the centre for close subject Performance wise, I'm pretty impressed. TL/DR - it's almost as good as the Olympus 8mm f1.8 - and I hold that lens in very high regard (it's certainly the best FE on the m43 format and there are a number of other credible options there, including a Panasonic/Leica version and one from Samyang that is well respected). Things of particular note about the TTArtisan:
The 11mm I tested was for Canon’s mirrorless RF lens mount, but versions of the same lens are available for Nikon Z, Sony E, and Leica L and M mounts. With our usual approach we cannot get decent values on the vignetting of fish-eye lenses. What I can tell you is that the vignetting figures are significantly lower than those of rectilinear ultra wide angle lenses, especially compact ones. Sony A7III | TTArtisan 11mm 2.8 fisheye | f/8.0
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. As shown in the example above it is also possible to defish fisheye pictures. Defishing means removing the typical fisheye distortion in post. Here the image is stretched so much, the resulting image quality leaves a lot to be desired. If you want straight lines in your pictures better get a rectilinear ultra wide angle lens in the first place. Handling / Build Quality AstrHori 12mm 2.8 Fisheye I’ve written here before. I’m a still life advertising and event photographer based in Japan. I do weddings, embassy powwows, corporate events, audiophile meet-ups, and shoot everything from jewellery to headphones. If you want to see, read, or listen to my opinions on lenses, cameras, and audio doo-dads, by all means hit me up at my blog: ohm image, and my YouTube channel: Fauxtaku Lounge.
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