This is the story of a ‘fantasy’ lens – a lens that, in it’s original manufacturers form, would cost an arm and two legs, but has been produced in a slightly simpler, and much cheaper form by the simple expedient of manufacturing it in China…
Welcome the TTArtisans 11mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens. This is a full-frame fisheye (not a circular image) and one of the things that appeals is the price – 199€ shipped! Mine is apparently on a plane from Singapore at the moment, and as soon as it arrives I’ll post some images – watch this space.
As a fan of ultra-wide angle lenses, this conforms to my requirements – it would be idiotic to complain about distorsion, or color fringes at this price, and with such a wide angle, ridiculous to expect edge to edge sharpness wide open.
This particular lens is designed for the Nikon Z mount, so I’ll be able to use this on my Z series camera bodies without the FTZ mount – the lens is also very compact, so I’m looking forward to carrying this around as I won’t feel my arm is being pulled off by the weight of the lens and body.
This lens is also manual focus – which is never a problem with ultra-wides as it’s much easier to set the focus distance at 3m, shoot at f/8 and EVERYTHING will be in focus anyway. The auto-focus motors and engineering are also what help to increase the price of the lens…I’m happy with this.
So, we’ll have to wait a few days to see…come on DHL….
