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The Zenitar was one of the first lenses I bought after getting a Pentax *ist DS kit in late 2005. While I’m not sure exactly why I opted for the Zenitar over something more practical, I ended up buying one new from an Ebay seller as it was cheap, said to be sharp, and interesting due to the fisheye feature.
Technical specifications for the lens:
- Lens Mount: K-mount
- Lens Construction: 10 elements in 7 groups
- Angle of View: 180 degrees (83 degrees in APS-C)
- Aperture: F2.8
- Number of Diaphragm Blades: 6
- Minimum Aperture: F22
- Minimum Focusing Distance: 1 ft (0.3048 meters)
- Filter Diameter: 26.5mm threaded rear mount type
- Maximum Magnification: 0.13x
- Dimensions: 63mm x 49mm
- Weight: 0.31 kg
- Case: soft Velcro closure type
- Objective Cap: Push on
- Hood: built-in (full frame)
- Lens Aperture Ring: yes
- Tripod Adapter: No
- Diaphragm Control: manual
- Focal Length: 16mm (equiv. 24.3mm)
- Notes: fisheye type lens
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General talk about the lens and its features:
The Zenitar 16mm f2.8 Fisheye lens is a product from Russia that’s available through non-standard channels like Ebay and a few lesser known online stores (aka. use caution and research before buying). It’s a moderate wide angle lens when considering the APS-C crop factor, but still provides some fisheye distortion effect to the resulting images.
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The lens is fully manual and does not transmit any information to the camera body. Aperture is controlled by a small ring that goes in what feels to be half-clicks through the full range. The lens is primarily constructed of metal, which gives a good feel to the lens. The rubberized focus ring has a nice smooth feel when rotating.
Focusing the lens isn’t particularly difficult thanks to it being a wide angle. On the back-end of the lens there is a thread to attach one of the 4 lens filters (3 colored and one clear). The front element is large and appears to be multi-coated to resist flare. There is a small built-in hood, but it is designed to block stray light with full frame cameras in mind.
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What I like about the lens:
- The lens is nicely constructed, especially for the price I paid years ago. Now, it looks like the lens goes around $220, which is still a pretty good bargain.
- As I mentioned before, the manual focus ring is smooth and effective.
- Rendering can be pleasing to the eye with vibrant colors. This isn’t always the case though.
- The colored filters are a fun little addition to the lens.
What I’m not too fond of:
- Prone to flare and visual artifacts in bright light. Although it’s easy to clone out any small artifacts, so I don’t consider that a big issue.
- Completely manual focus and aperture with no data connection to the camera body, so EXIF data saved is limited.
- Easy to get a finger into the frame on accident, especially with gloves on.
- Lens cap is cheap and broke on me.
- The aperture ring action is a bit cheap feeling as well as loud.
Images with a bit of analysis:
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It’s easy to get your fingers in the frame by accident (lower left black spot is my glove)
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Conclusion:
For the price, it’s a good option to experiment with fisheye and moderate wide angle photography. There are other options available to be bought new, but all cost more than the Zenitar. The Pentax 10-17mm Fisheye, which is around $300 more than the Zenitar.
There are also quite a few lenses available from Sigma (10mm f2.8 and 15mm f2.8) as well as a few off-brand options like the Bower 8mm f3.5 Fisheye. While the image quality isn’t top-notch, it’s serviceable and at times quite good.
Flare and artifacts can be an issue with the lens, but some of it is easily correctable in post-processing. You need to keep more in mind when using the lens as it is completely manual in operation. Given the price, it’s a decent purchase in my opinion.