[APML] Zenitar 16mm f2.8 "fisheye" - not entirely happy (yet?)

[Stuart Heggie <stuart.j.heggie@sympatico.ca>]

I have been playing with my new lens and have some "observations". I'm 
hoping I'm wrong but I find the following:

1. I bought the lens for my manual focus F2's and so was expecting the 
"prong" that indexes the photomic prism on my F2's - it has no 
prong.This means I have to spend a wack of time interpolating from the 
last position the photomic finder was at and my shutter speed - if it 
was left at 5.6 (usual) I have to fool with the shutter speed till I get 
an appropriate exposure setting then figure out what speed to shoot 
given the f-stop I'm going to use - what a hassle!
2. I assumed infinity would be infinity - this lens does not seem able 
to focus at infinity and I have to stop it down to about f5.6 or even 
f8.0 before the preview button gives me confidence that the distant 
horizon is in focus. My star trail pics are sharp but they were at f8.0. 
Note: I have the clear filter in place, I guess I could try without it 
but that seems counter intuitive.

My frustration, if I can call it that, is that I bought it for aurora 
more than anything and I would shoot the aurora wide open so if it won't 
hit infinity at f2.8, I wasted my money. Further, all this fooling 
around because there is no indexing prong is a pain. Sigh.

Any ideas or similar experiences?

Stuart

_______________________________________________
Astro-Photo mailing list
Astro-Photo@seds.org
http://seds.org/mailman/listinfo/astro-photo