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Very often I'm asked if the Nikon 10.5 F/2.8 Fisheye lens could be a
nice wide angle landscape lens. This question arrive from the fact
that pictures taken with this lens can be 'defished' using Nikon
Capture 4.4 or Capture NX. Technically it is possible, in my honest
opinion, practically it is not. Nikon's fisheye is a specialty lens
offering an angle of view of 180°. The typical distortion on the
edge of the frame is removed with software, however the results are
less than perfect. They are followed by an array of 3rd party plug-ins
with the promise of removing this common distortion. I have yet to
see results that please my eye. Corners end quite soft with a
''stretchy'' look not practical if one is intending to print in large
sizes, or looking forward to the best overall picture quality.
I believe the
best option is to use a real ultra wide angle lens like Nikon's 12-24
F/4, Tokina 12-24 and any of
the Sigma's 12-24 offerings including their 10-20 lens. Should you
need 180º or greater, I'm quite sure you will get better results
by stitching 2 or 3 photos at a wide angle setting rather than having
1 out of the fisheye lens. Below I'm more than happy to share 3
pictures using my Nikon 10.5 so you can defish them and be the judge.
The option is only available using Nikon Capture as long as the
original fisheye pictures are taken in NEF (RAW) (Nikon Electronic
Format). If the pictures are not taken in RAW, the option
will not be available when using Capture 4.4 or NX. Also, the option
of Color Aberration removal is not functional if the pictures are
taken in regular JPEG mode using any of your Nikon DSLRs.
click
on the picture above or here to download your Nikon NEF files
Note:
Forum members
please do not link to the zip folder address, link to this page
instead. A pleasure to share them here but help me save bandwidth.
Download the pictures only if you mean to test them. They are in RAW
format thus your need Capture 4.4 or NX to 'defish'.
*If you have
questions or if you'd like to discuss about this lens,
feel free to sign
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