10.5mm Can Be Used as Effectively as Wide Angle Zoom

There was recent post about a Tokinia 10-17mm fisheye. I made some comments

about it:

 

"The Nikon 10.5mm lens is an excellent wide angle/fisheye lens because you can

easily correct the distortion if you want to, and you can crop it to the

equivalent of 17mm (or more or less) without loss of image quality, so it

serves multiple uses."

 

This is a followup to that thread and my post.

 

If you are considering this lens, or a wide angle lens, I put together some

test shots to show you what you can do with Nikon's 10,5mm lens. I shot the

test shots with a d200 and processed both images with DXO software. Nikon

Capture software also corrections distortion on this lens.

 

I shot two images, one with the 10.5mm and the other at 17mm with my 17-55

2.8. I then processed the images with DXO and cropped the 10.5mm to the

equivalent of 17mm. You can easily print the cropped image as an 8 x 10

without loss of image quality. Through cropping, you can use this lens for

many wide angle applications.

 

I have been considering buying the 12-24 but realize now that I can get by

without it. The 10.5mm lens is a very capable lens. It is a fun fisheye and

hard working wide angle lens.

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder.tcl?folder_id=733468

Elliot, the comparison is interesting. I am also considering the 10.5 for this purpose, what I am more worried about is the difficulty with composition. How easy is it to envision the final corrected wide angle image in the moment you take the photo? Marco

Replace the term "without loss of image quality" by "with only little losses in image quality". Whenever you defish an image you do indeed (and unavoidable) do heavy interpolations for the pixels at the border of the new image.

Marco, I compose the shot as best as I can given the widest view, and then cropping is easy. The lens is really easy to use, very, very sharp, and color/contrast are excellent.

 

Rainer, I stand by my statement "without loss" - in fact, images processed with DXO are in all cases superior to the original (IMO). DXO is an amazing program. In any case, when you crop, the border of the original image is discarded so the 17mm equivalent image is of exceptionally high quality, even if there were problems with the border area.

 

I will try and post some 100% crops of the edges later for you to examine.

When the 10.5mm image is 'straightened' using Nikon Capture, some portions of the image are "gone." If you have to have all the elements in your scene, one might consider the Sigma 10-20mm lens. Nearly as wide as the 10.5mm lens, but the 'bend' at the edges is not to be found.

Elliot,

 

the changes made in the image might appear to result in a very fine image ... and I'm certainly not arguing with that.

 

Nevertheless, the term "without losses" with its matematical implication that the SAME information is still in the destination image is bound to be wrong. If you would measure an MTF curve for the

section of the fisheye image from which the borders of the new image are build, you would find that MTF in the original is higher.

 

Also, if you would make a large print from a defished image from the fisheye and from a rectilinear corrected lens, you would find that the borders in the image of the corrected lens are better.

Nikon Capture does a lousy job on "defishing" the 10.5mm. I have had much greater success using the Remap module in PTools.

 

The issue with this lens used as a rectilinear very wide lens is that you need to remove CA to the highest possible degree. Not always the easiest of tasks because there can be a mix of red-cyan and blue-yellow fringing going on. I'm using BibblePro (4.9.8) that can fix these issues well, but you do have to tweak the settings a little with some of the files from the 10.5.

 

I'm currently using a 1.5m wide "defished" image as the screen background on my dual 30" cinema monitors, and it appears extremely sharp.

 

For unobtrusive shooting in IR, the 10.5 with a 87 gel in the rear filter slot is amazing. Depending on the subject, I either do a remapping or leave as is.

Gerald:

 

You do loose a little bit of the image with the DXO process as well, but there is a 'wide' option that retains virtual all of the image. Knowing that some of the image is lost, you could step back a few steps to allow for this.

 

Rainer:

 

I agree with your thinking yet DXO does some amazing things. I am very curious to see the actual results with the images I took. I will put the orignal and DXO's image under the microscope and post some images either tonight or tomorrow. Let me know what you think.

I posted some crops of the original photos here:

 

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=736492

 

I show the original images and then cropped the 'cropped' 17mm images.

 

I can see some minor 'loss' on the edges but these would not be visible in normal sized prints.

 

The cropped images at 17mm look pretty much identical. It is a coin toss.

 

Hope this helps those who are interested in the lens.

I forgot to add that although there is purple fringing along the edges, the center of the picture is fine. DXO corrected it slightly but did not do a great job.

Having read this thread and reviewed the sample images, I would only change one word of my last post in the thread Elliot is replying to here; I would take out "straighten", it was a typo. Here's a question I would have to anyone "defishing" their 10.5 shots to achieve wide angle rectilinear shots: Isn't workflow and IQ better served by switching lenses in the field and using the one that is appropriate to the composition that has been pre-visualized?

Anthony, yes, but only if you have the additional lens.

 

Personally, I bought the lens because I like the slight fisheye look.

 

I have only had the lens a number of months and have not used it all that much. Until I have the funds to buy a wider angle lens than my 17-55, this will have to do.

 

I am curious if others that have this lens are getting the purple fringing I am getting?

Hi Elliot. The points you raise are fair ones and I appreciate your posted samples.

 

I would suggest that 17-18mm rectilinear is an important focal length that should be in most people's bags, or included in their "all-in-one" zooms. I would also suggest that for going wider the first choice would be a different format or one of the ultra wide zooms; specifically Sigma, Tokina, or the Nikkor. The Tokina fisheye zoom and Nikkor 10.5 are specialized lenses that most users will use far less than the rectilinear wides (although Juanjo seems very happy with his switch to the fisheye zoom from the Tokina 12-24).

 

As for the purple fringing and CA from the Nikkor 10.5, I don't own one yet but have heard reports about that issue from everyone who owns one and has shared their thoughts. I am still strongly considering the lens for my son; especially because he shoots in low light, which makes it preferable to the Tokina fisheye zoom.

Prior to shooting digital, my widest lens was the 17-35mm/f2.8 AF-S, which is a super wide for 35mm film. Since I started shooting digital, I have bought 3 DX lenses and in the following order. If I could do it all over again, I would still buy them in exactly the same order. In other words, I bought the early ones to fill some very specific holes in digital:

 

1. The 12-24mm/f4 AF-S DX so that I could "regain" the wide end.

 

2. The 17-55mm/f2.8 AF-S DX, as a "digital replacement" for the 28-70mm/f2.8 AF-S

 

3. The 10.5mm/f2.8 DX fisheye for the occasional special effects. While I like to use this lens occasionally, I can certainly live without it.

 

As Bjorn points out, I have used the Nikon Capture NX to de-fish the 10.5mm DX. The center part is ok but the edges are very disappointing.