New Opteka Fisheye Modification - Panasonic Cameras

[mushman]

Hello People of Slap,

I like many others have been waiting patiently for information regarding the rerelease of the xtreme. I began to think though that if that day never comes, there isn't really a professional level fisheye available for the cameras as the opteka provides sub par results on its own. I have a introductory level understanding of optics from my first year engineering course, but i thought if there was a way to adjust the minimum focal length you'd be able to get a clear image with no loss of resolution from cropping or other digital manipulations. Fast forward to now. I have been experimenting with various macro sets, and have been somewhat successful. I have found that the best was +1 Macro Filter in front of the opteka with Z24 for my hpx250. Testing on other cameras has been successful but those settings will require brief experimenting as i didn't log them when I tested it. I apologize but these are kind of copies of copies of screen grabs. 

[CHONGO]

good work son

[fisheye talk]

Props for experimenting! Have you been able to take side by side comparisons with and without the macro filter? The samples you posted have quite a bit of chromatic aberration and blue blurry vig. Is it a big improvement?

[mushman]

I actually found a better macro pairing versus the one listed above a day or two after my initial post, I had issues with the +1 where it seemed a tad soft still. Using the +2 Macro Filter virtually eliminated the chromatic abberation that is visible above. Will post later tonight with some snowboarding footage and side by side comparisons. Unfortunately, the blue vig seems to be a product of the airspace in between the macro lens and the opteka fisheye. Im not sure if there will be a way of getting away from that but it should be simple enough to fix in post. It was suggested to me to actually use a Century Xtreme Mask to replicate the exact vignetting. I havent done so, but i will likely look into in the near future.