I admitt that I’m a real gear geek. I allways want another camera, lens of accessory. But that obsession doesn’t come from greed or snobism. My gear has to allow me to make better and more creative work. I’m allways looking for creative angles, refreshing compositions and cool effects.  

Something that has allways interested me is a fisheye lens, that’s an extreme wide angle lens. The big brands have some of those in their collection. But on a camera with a crop sensor these lenses are usually not wide enough to give the real fisheye effect. As far as I’m aware only Sigma has an 8mm fisheye but it’s quit expensive for a lens that has a limited use (at least to me).

A much cheaper alternative is the Russian Peleng 8mm f/3.5. It’s mostly sold by eBay stores and costs only about 30% of the Sigma. I bought mine through the eBay store East Wave BestOptics. They answered my e-mails fast and with good answers to my questions. After I paid, it took a week before the lens was delivered in a nice package. (And I didn’t even have to drop off a briefcase of unmarked 1-dollar bills in a dark alley.)

The Peleng is build by a Russian military factory and that’s exactely the way it looks. It’s not a piece of art like an L-lens and build quality isn’t very impressive either. It’s not that I expect it to fall apart, but it’s a bit loose. 

I’ve been told that it’s extremely hard to build the optics for such an extreme wide angle lens. The optical quality isn’t great. Lensflare, vignetting and some strange effects are just part of the Peleng. 

It’s safe to say that compared to the Peleng, a Lada is a marvel of space age technology. There’s no electronic communication between the lens and the camera. This means that you don’t have autofocus or any other electronic features.

In the picture below you can see the focus ring on the bottom of the lens. On top is the aperture ring and below that there is a ring (the one that says ‘unlock’) used to ‘activate’ the chosen aperture. It’s kind of a strange system to work with that ‘activate’ ring and it’s hard to explain (that’s probably the reason why it doesn’t come with a good manual).
But with a little experimentation and some practice it works pretty well.

By now, you probably think that the Peleng is just a piece of junk. You are right, but it’s a piece of junk that can be used to create very original images and you can have a lot of fun in the process. 

First of all, the Peleng gives you an almost 180 degree view on a camera with a 1.6 crop sensor. Even in a tight space you can make an establishing shot with the Peleng. You just got to be carefull not to include your own feet in the picture, it’s that wide. 

Some don’t like the distortion of a fisheye lens. You can hardly called the distortion on the sides natural. You can correct this in software but the distortion is just what I like about a fisheye.  I actually like the whole low-fi look. The distortion, lens flare and vignetting are quite cool, I think.

A fisheye isn’t a very good allround lens and you have to be carefull not to overuse it. The effect is surprising only if it’s used from time to time. Making a good fisheye image isn’t very easy either. Because the image contains so much info, it’s often hard to lead the eye of the viewer to your main subject. Untill now I managed to make only a few fisheye shots that I’m really satisfied about. 

Just after I got the fisheye, we bought one of those giant trampolines for the kids. When I stuck my head in the safety net and looked up I notices some nice clouds and the attractive lines and curves of the net. I immediately saw this as a potential fisheye picture. 

I focussed the Peleng at about 1.5 meter and set the aperture at f/8 or f/11 and took some testshot to find the right shutterspeed for a slightly underexposed sky. I just stretched my arm into the safety net and shot straight up. It’s hard to miss your subject with a fisheye and thanks to the large depth of field, there’s no need to focus accurately.

I liked the silhouette of Maya (my eldest daughter), but after a few shots I started thinking about using a flash to light the subject. A friend who came over was transformed into a human lightstand by putting a Nikon SB24 and a pocketwizard into his hands. He was standing to my left and aimed the flash at my son Kobe who showed off on the trampoline.  I had to use the flash at full power to keep the sky dark enough.

The combination of a fisheye and off-camera flash seems to work really fine. You can have the superwide view of the fisheye and still lead the attention of the viewer towards the subject because it’s lit with the flash.

The Peleng is a bit like the spare tire in my car. Most of the time it’s just dead weight, but sooner or later it might come in really handy.