Peleng 8mm f/3.5 lens

Peleng 8mm f/3.5 180° Lens

(and some notes about other 8mm fisheye lenses)

Comments by Matt Mueller for muellerworld

London Eye, Nikon 8mm lens

Which Camera Bodies will it work on?

With the small rear filter in place on the Peleng 8mm lens, I tested several several Nikon camera bodies.

At the minimum focus point (0.22 metres) the rear element is inside the lens more than it is when the lens is focused to infinity. This was noticable when I tested the F100: the mirror caught on the lens when focussed to infinity, but worked fine when it was in the minimum focus position.

Digital Cameras:

Film Cameras:


Note: mirror sizes vary on many Nikon camera bodies, and some of them will hit the rear of the Peleng 8mm lens. On the rear of the lens there is a small filter that screws onto the lens. It is part of the optical design of the lens, so shooting without it will make your images blurry. Please do your own tests and develop your own level of comfort with the mirror slapping issue - every camera is slightly different and the plastic mount on the Peleng 8mm lens might be slightly thicker or thinner due to manufacturing variations...

 

Why?

The 8mm, 180° circular fisheye is a special-use lens. I was introduced to it as a way to map filming environments for visual-effects purposes on feature films. I used the stout (and expensive) Nikon 8mm, f/2.8 hemisphere of glass for about 3 years and really grew to love it (although, for casual photography it can get even more annoying than a 16mm fisheye if you use it too much). Sigma makes a 8mm, f/4 lens which is a lot less expensive than the big Nikkor, and quite a bit smaller as well.

After 3 years of using the Nikkor 8mm, I no longer had access to it because of a job change and a reloaction half-way around the world.

Enter the Peleng 8mm lens: the poor-man's circular fisheye.

From the information I have been able to find about the Peleng, it is produced at the Belomo optical factory in Minsk, Belarus (former USSR). Presumably, it started out as military equipment that is now available to the world for about $200 (USD).

 

How to get one:

I had originally seen the Peleng 8mm lens for sale on eBay, and that is where I found out about Kiev Camera (Michael Fourman in Atlanta Georgia).

There were other shops and other people selling the lens, but I called Michael and ordered the lens. He matched his eBay price (prices on his web site were slightly higher) and I gave him my credit card number and told him that I wanted a Nikon-mount adapter in my kit. A few days later, the lens arrived (the kit has 4 filters, a lens pouch and a Russian-language owner's manual). the signature and stamp of the inspector (included in the owner's manual)

Web Vendors:

 

Using it:

The first thing you'll have to do with your new Peleng lens is to mount the Nikon adapter on it. Armed with a small flat screwdriver, slide the plastic adapter onto the end of the lens, figure out where it should line up with the mounting dot, and evenly tighten the screws.

The first time I did it, I guessed wrong, and had to loosen it all up again and rotate it into a better position. In all, it took about 2 minutes.

The mount feels cheap, but it works.

The Peleng lens has a stop-down ring that controls the opening and closing of the aperture seperately from the aperture selector. What this means is that once you use the outer ring to select the f/stop you need (3.5 - 16 with click-stops), you must then close down the aperture manually. This is easy to do by just rotating the "LOCK/UNLOCK" dial into the "LOCK" position. If you're looking through the viewfinder and you are any aprerture other than f/3.5, you'll see it get darker as the aperature closes down. I have forgot to do this several times, ruining many photos.

The lens's inner-most ring is for focusing.

Civic Square, Wellington Art. Wellington.

 

A Note about Digital Cameras and the Peleng 8mm Lens:

Using this lens with a Nikon D70/D100/D1x/D2H or a Fuji S2/S1 will effectively crop the circular fisheye to that of a 12mm lens which is nearly full frame. The examples below show (from left to right) a shot taken with a Nikon F100 which shows the full circular image of 180ƒ. The center image shows a similar shot taken with a Nikon D100, which also shows the 180ƒ field of view, but due to the smaller film back of the D100's sensor, the image is cropped tighter that that of the F100. The last image shows the approximate crop.

Living room. 6/26 Buller Street Living room. 6/26 Buller Street Living room. 6/26 Buller Street

 

Nikon's 8mm Lens

The Nikon 8mm employs an in-line filter wheel add filtering to the lens (since it is pretty-much impossible to gel a hemisphere of glass effectively). The Sigma allows tiny gels to be insertted behind the rear element.

Overall, I have been pleased with the lens for casual use, but it is not as sharp as my Nikon 8mm (in mid-2004, after 4 years without one, I broke down and bought a used Nikkor 8mm lens from KEH in Atlanta, Georgia)

Peleng 8mm lens mounted on a Nikon D2H Peleng & Nikon 8mm lenses Peleng & Nikon 8mm lenses Nikkor 8mm lens mounted on a Nikon D2H

 

Getting the full circle on a digital camera:

Since the Nikon D-Series cameras have a CCD sensor that is smaller than the size of a frame of 35mmm film, the full circle is not projected onto the CCD (that is the effective crop). With a relay system, you can get the whole circle onto the CCD. I built one by following Bj¯rn R¯rslett's description on his web page:

My relay system is laid out like this:

The coupling of the 35mm and 50mm lens provides a 0.7x multiplier to shrink the projected image down to a size that will fit onto the CCD sensor. Both lenses must be focused to infinity, and at maximum aperture to prevent vignetting. The extension tubes allow the 8mm lens to be focussed to infinity and project a sharp image.

Peleng 8mm lens mounted on a Nikon D2H with a reley system in place Peleng 8mm lens Peleng 8mm lens
Peleng 8mm on a Nikon D2H
with the relay system		 Peleng 8mm Peleng 8mm with a relay system

Nikkor 8mm lens mounted on a Nikon D2H with a reley system in place Nikkor 8mm lens Nikkor 8mm lens
Nikkor 8mm on a Nikon D2H
with the relay system		 Nikkor 8mm Nikkor 8mm with a relay system

 

Subsequently, I also found Dan Slater's description of his relay system for using the Nikon 6mm f/5.6 lens (220° field of view):

 

Of course, you could always mount an 8mm lens on a Canon 1Ds Mark II camera body to get a full circle. I tried this with my 8mm Nikkor and a 1Ds in early 2005, and found that the huge, sharp images that the Canon produces showed that the Nikon wasn't as sharp as I had hoped it would be:

 

Additional Information:

The best Peleng website I have found is Marco Pauck's excellent and informative page: Jennifer behind an empty building near Parliament

 

Options:

The only other low-end (read: cheap) option I know of for circular 180° fisheye photos is the 7.5mm f/5.6 Canon lens (FD mount).

I borrowed one for some night photography, and was really happy with the results (although, I haven't taken any daylight photos with it, so I haven't scrutinized the quality of the lens). The owner of the lens picked it up used for a few hundred dollars (USD).

The Sigma lens can be had for about $800 (USD) new, and the Nikon 8mm f/2.8 behemoth is sometimes available on eBay or at used camera shops in the $2,000 to $3,200 range (USD) for the AIS version and around $2,000 (USD) for the AI version.

There are other versions of the circular fisheye (7.5mm, 8mm, 10mm), many of which I haven't mentioned, but one that is sure to instill awe is the massive Nikon 6mm, 220ƒ f/2.8, $14,000 monster...

April 15, 2004