Bower 8mm Manual lens

greeches

greeches

Veteran
Anyone tried this lens out? I'm torn between the Sigma 10-20 and the Bower 8mm. The Bower is about 100$ less new...

Sigma 10-20


Bower 8mm
 
If you're going to go for the 10-20, you might as well spend the extra cash and get the Tokina.
 
I bought a Bower 500mm tele years ago because it was only $100 new. The same 500mm can be found with many names on it however for a hundred bucks, nothing to loose.
I think the wide lens may be another story though. Your test shot looks very distorted, and maybe soft on the edges, I don't know, but would suspect.
I would agree with the Tokina 11-16mm 2.8. Very high score from everybody, even Photozone.com and they are brutal critics when testing lenses. Have a look at some of Mike Johnson's test shot on a recent thread here. Great looking shots from that lens.
 
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The sigma is an ultra wide which means it is 'rectilinear' ie straight lines stay straight

The Bower 8mm is a fisheye which means straight lines get curved

These two lenses have two completely different purposes and should not be compared.

For examle, lets say you are creating a short film and you cut from medium close ups to a wide and then back. Its going to look pretty silly if you cut from rectilinear to fisheye and back.

Fisheye is a specialty lens for a specific look.
 
J Davis said:
The sigma is an ultra wide which means it is 'rectilinear' ie straight lines stay straight

The Bower 8mm is a fisheye which means straight lines get curved

These two lenses have two completely different purposes and should not be compared.

For examle, lets say you are creating a short film and you cut from medium close ups to a wide and then back. Its going to look pretty silly if you cut from rectilinear to fisheye and back.

Fisheye is a specialty lens for a specific look.
Click to expand...

Good point, but the Bower also looks very soft as well.
 
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