Francois Pelletier
Posts: 2
Location: United States
Registered: 22 Feb 2008
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SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 22 Feb 2008 at 18:46 GMT
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Sunex, Inc. a leading manufacturer of high quality digital imaging lenses announces the introduction of the first circular fisheye lens for Canon APS-C and Nikon DX format DSLR Cameras with 185° field of view.
The new Sunex SuperFisheyeTM is designed to produce a complete circular image within the camera CMOS/CCD imager giving a true complete 185° field of view. The 185° FOV provides enough overlap and allows stitching software to realize a 360° immersive image with only two shots! Newly available high index glasses are used to achieve sharp images from center to edge while BBAR coatings are applied to all air-glass interfaces to keep overall flare/ghosting at a minimum. Easy to use, the SuperFisheye lens uses optimized fixed aperture and focus to achieve best image quality for panoramic and immersive photography.
Lens Specifications:
• Focal length 5.6mm
• Aperture F/5.6 (fixed)
• 185° field of view
• Image circle: ~14.5mm (optimized for 1.6x sensor)
• Depth of field: ~0.5m to infinity
• Size: ~70mmx90mm (dia x length)
• Weight: ~470g
• Mount: Canon and Nikon
In addition, the lens comes with the new Sunex Dewarper DSLR Photoshop compatible plug-in filter for correcting or optimizing distortion. The result is true panoramic picture where the level of distortion can be adjusted to accomplish spectacular creative effects.
Sunex SuperFisheyeTM lens including Dewarper DSLRTM software is available at a suggested retail price of $799. Please visit www.superfisheye.com for more information.
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rudders
Posts: 306
Location: North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Registered: 21 Aug 2005
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 22 Feb 2008 at 19:45 GMT
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Looking at some samples, the lens looks really soft and suffers very badly from CA. Reminds me of the $90 opteka fisheye in terms of image quality but costing over $700 more. Check your ISO aswell as the samples are very very grainy.
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John Houghton
Posts: 2021
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 22 Feb 2008 at 22:05 GMT
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A month ago here, I posted this stitch of images supplied by John Law: www.johnhpanos.com/jl2.htm . The image quality is rather better than in the samples.
John
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Doug Aurand
Posts: 250
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 22 Feb 2008 at 22:42 GMT
updated: 22 Feb 2008 at 22:44 GMT
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Francois
I had heard that the Sunex lens didn't do all that well with 2 fisheye stitching, but it did better with 3 fisheyes.
Is it possble to get some 2 fisheye and 3 fisheye photo sets of images we could test stitch with the various programs that can do 2 fisheye stitching like iPIX Interactive Studio, RealViz Sitcher Unlimited DS, easypano Panoweaver, PTGui and others?
Most photographers will want to see before believing and dig into our wallets for $800
I'm an iPIX Interactive Studio user who would love to keep doing 2 fisheye stitching when I move up from my Nikon Coolpix 5400 to a dSLR like the Canon XTi I bought for still photos last year.
I haven't bought the Sigma 8mm I want yet, so you have a change to sell a lens here.
I'm looking forward to hearing more from you and Sunex
Doug Aurand
Albuquerque, NM
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Francois Pelletier
Posts: 2
Location: United States
Registered: 22 Feb 2008
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 22 Feb 2008 at 23:53 GMT
updated: 23 Feb 2008 at 0:16 GMT
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Hi,
I see many comments followed our commercial announcment, which shows Panoguide is read by many passionate panoramic photographers. It is possible to stitch with 2-shots using Realviz Stitcher and we have 5 examples on our website at
www.sunex.com/dslr/virtualtour.htm.
PTGUI doesn't support 2 shots stitch, but it work very well with 3 shots.
As for the Sigma 8mm, remember that you will not get a full circular image with this lens using a Canon 1.6X or Nikon 1.5X SLRs. You will need a full frame camera for a full circular image. The other alternative is the new Sigma 4.5mm fisheye which will give you a full circular image. However, the circle projected on the CMOS Imager will be of 12.5mm while it will be of 14.5mm using Sunex 5.6mm fisheye lens. If you have a 10M pixels imager, that means you are going to use approx 5M pixels with Sunex and approx 3.8M pixels with Sigma.
For independent reviews of Sunex fisheye lens at:
www.kenrockwell.com/tech/pma-08.htm
michel.thoby.free.fr/Sunex_SuperFisheye/Test_repo...
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Smooth
Posts: 1439
Location: Australia
Registered: 21 Jul 2004
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 23 Feb 2008 at 3:29 GMT
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Francois,
You are not doing yourself any favours showing the panorama images (or at least the ones I looked at) on your www.sunex.com/dslr/virtualtour.htm page the quality is very poor and I doubt this is totally the result of the lens but more so the poor stitching and lack of leveling in the case of the 2 shot night full screen panorama. (Shocking  )
I'd advise you find some photographers who have at least basic knowledge on shooting and stitching. It would go a long way in helping sales.
It does make me wonder how people come about making lenses if they are not at least knowledgeable on taking quality photographs in the first place?
Please supply two quality full size images for 2 shot stitch testing please.
My brain is rattling.
Regards, Smooth 
www.smooth360.com
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Nick Fan
[NodalNinja]
Posts: 190
Location: Hong Kong
Registered: 26 May 2006
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 23 Feb 2008 at 6:09 GMT
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John Houghton said: A month ago here, I posted this stitch of images supplied by John Law: www.johnhpanos.com/jl2.htm . The image quality is rather better than in the samples.
John
John, what is the resolution in pixels of the pano? Is there a way to check out the resolution for panos in different format?
thx a lot.
nick
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John Houghton
Posts: 2021
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 23 Feb 2008 at 7:27 GMT
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Francois Pelletier said: PTGUI doesn't support 2 shots stitch, but it work very well with 3 shots.
Francois, PTGui is perfectly capable of stitching 2 shots, but you need to use calibrated lens parameters evaluated using more than 2 images, i.e. template stitching assisted with a few control points set in the limited overlap area.
John
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John Houghton
Posts: 2021
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 23 Feb 2008 at 7:54 GMT
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Nick Fan said: John, what is the resolution in pixels of the pano?
I generated the source images from the supplied RAW files at full size: 3872x2592. They look like this:
The generated equirectangular file at maximum (optimum) size was 4620x2310. The QTVR file displayed in the post has a cubic tile size of 1470.
John
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michael przewrocki
Posts: 664
Location: basel, Switzerland
Registered: 19 Nov 2004
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 23 Feb 2008 at 10:45 GMT
updated: 23 Feb 2008 at 10:46 GMT
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for real quality-bigger posters-rotapancamera is needed
roundshot 220vr, lookaround(both film) or roundshot d3(digital-the best of all digital rotapancams) for the richer.
lookaround with 18mm(12mm equiv.) isnt this enough? 110 degr.x360. even with +-4mm shift. or 35mm(equiv.24*) pc with at least +-15mm shift. or 28PC(19*) or announced 24pc hartblei(16.5*)i wished i had the schneider and hartblei
its a pity that lookaround is not officially produced anymore(but a construction handbook can be achieved.*VFOV equivalent lens when using unperforated 35mm film.
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Matt Rogers
[360 Precision]
Posts: 153
Location: Oxford UK, United Kingdom
Registered: 16 Jun 2005
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 23 Feb 2008 at 11:20 GMT
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michael przewrocki said: for real quality-bigger posters-rotapancamera is needed
roundshot 220vr, lookaround(both film) or roundshot d3(digital-the best of all digital rotapancams) for the richer.
lookaround with 18mm(12mm equiv.) isnt this enough? 110 degr.x360. even with +-4mm shift. or 35mm(equiv.24*) pc with at least +-15mm shift. or 28PC(19*) or announced 24pc hartblei(16.5*)i wished i had the schneider and hartblei
its a pity that lookaround is not officially produced anymore(but a construction handbook can be achieved.*VFOV equivalent lens when using unperforated 35mm film.
What does this post have to do with the topic ?
Matt
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benj007
Posts: 23
Location: berck sur mer, France
Registered: 15 Jun 2007
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 23 Feb 2008 at 11:37 GMT
updated: 23 Feb 2008 at 11:40 GMT
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Hi Francois 
Your lens seems to be interesting but I have a question about the rotator. Do you have one with 2 180° stops for 2 shots panoramas ? Because we can take only 2 shots with it, why you don't sell a rotator with 2 stops ?
I agree with the others members, please post a set of 2 full resolution shots (ideally with a rotator, not hand-held) to help photographers testing it.
Thanks a lot
Regards
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Doug Aurand
Posts: 250
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 23 Feb 2008 at 16:19 GMT
updated: 23 Feb 2008 at 16:20 GMT
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Ben007
The quick way to get 3, 4 or more stops out of a 2 stop rotator is to lock up the 2 stop rotator and mount it on top of a Manfrotto 300N
I'm still using my iPIX Interactive Studio and the iPIX 2 stop Rotator for my Coolpix 5400/FC-E9 rotator. iPIX made either 2 stop or fairly rare 3 stop rotators, but they didn't switch back & forth.
I locked up the "rotating stem" by adding an auto hose clamp and just screwed it onto the Manfrotto panhead (actually I have an old 3414 that has been replaced by the 300N) and just move the set screw when I want to do 3 stops. It can do all the way up to 36 stops
Doug Aurand
Albuquerque, NM
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badders
Posts: 30
Location: East Kilbride, United Kingdom
Registered: 5 Dec 2007
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 23 Feb 2008 at 21:06 GMT
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I'll post some 2 shot images using this exact method tomorrow, taken at the Focus on Imaging Show - Birmingham NEC in the UK where we are launching the UK release of this lens and rotator.
If anyone is coming to the show you can find us on Stand LK2.
Andrew Baddeley
www.360tacticalvr.co.uk
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LensGuy
Posts: 18
Location:
Registered: 23 Feb 2008
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Re: SUNEX Lauches new circular fisheye lens for 1.6x/1.5x DSLRs with 185deg FOV
Posted: 24 Feb 2008 at 0:21 GMT
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Hi Everyone,
I've just loaded some 2- and 3-shot files for everyone to experiment with. You can download the JPG files at:
www.sunex.com/dslr/files/2shots.zip
www.sunex.com/dslr/files/3shots.zip
I've also included a MOV file in each zip that I've created using PTgui. My 2-shot MOV can be probably improved by using a different blending method rather than the default option. The optimal lens parameters setting in PTGui seem to be: FOV=183, and b=-0.22, with the rest parameters being zero.
Though I'm the optical designer of the Sunex SuperFisheye lens, my experience with stitching software is rather limited. So I welcome your comments how to improve the stitching results (Thanks to Smooth, I've leveled the panorama of Las Vegas Strip on our site).
The SuperFisheye lens can be used for both 2 and 3 shots stitching. I used our 3-position rotator to capture those images (including the 2-shot images). The nodal point setting is not quite optimal for the 2-shot using the 3-shot rotator. So the 2-shot result is not as good as the 3-shot. We will be coming out with a 4 position rotator soon that will make the 2-shot even better.
Cheers !
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