The Best Fisheye Lens For Nikon D5500 Cameras!

So in today’s article, we are going to be going over what we feel is the best fisheye lens for Nikon d5500 camera owners on the market right now. Judging from social media and photography forums, it seems that more and more people are wanting to get involved in fisheye photography so we decided to publish this article for our readers who own the d5500 in the hope we can help them.

Although we will be going over it in more detail throughout the article, we feel that the best fisheye lens for the d5500 on the market right now is definatley the Rokinon 8mm (Click here to check for product prices and availability). We would also like to quickly confirm that the Samyang 8mm is also the exact same lens just under different branding so depending on where you live, you may have an easier time picking up the Samyang variant of the lens rather than the Rokinon version.

If you have been involved in fisheye photography for some time then you will know that the Rokinon 8mm has rightly earned itself one of the best reputations within the community out of all the popular fisheye lenses available right now. We feel this is due to the lower price tag, the superior performance even when used in low light, the great build quality, and the ease of use.

Although we feel that the Rokinon 8mm is ideal for all types of fisheye photography, we have noticed a number of photographers are reporting excellent things when using it for their social media pages like Instagram. Fisheye photography can allow you to capture a location that has been photographed many times before but still look unique and fresh due to the ultra wide angle and fisheye effect. As so many niches are extremely competitive, this can be a quick and easy way to make your image pop and stand out from the competition.

Click Here To Check For Prices On The Rokinon 8mm Fisheye Lens!

User Interface And Control System

Just like the majority of the rest of the Rokinon range, their 8mm ultra-wide fisheye lens is very easy to control and allows you to get exactly what you want out of it quickly. The manual focus ring is very easy to rotate to get your subject in focus while also having just enough resistance to ensure you are able to accurately turn the ring without accidentally overturning.

In addition to this, the manual focus ring has been texturized with rubber grooves to allow you to quickly and easily locate it with just your fingertips allowing you to locate it without taking your eye off your camera’s viewfinder. Additionally, the rubber ring around the manual focus ring allows you to accurately grip and turn it even if your fingertips are cold or wet.

[the_ad id=”5467″]

Due to being a fixed focal length prime lens, there is no manual zoom wheel making it even easier to get to grips with. The lens cap uses the standard twist lock system allowing you to quickly and easily get the lens cap on and off the lens when required to ensure the forward lens element is protected when not in use.

As the Rokinon 8mm has a dome based forward lens for optimal performance as a fisheye lens, there are no regular lens filters available for it meaning this is another thing that you don’t have to worry about. The main problem we see people having, especially if you purchase the lens from a general store without a photography expert is that it is available in multiple variations to fit Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Pentax, and Fuji camera bodies so just make sure you are getting the Nikon variant of the lens and you will be good to go!

All in all, we feel that Rokinon has done an excellent job of making their 8mm ultra wide fisheye prime lens as easy to use as possible. Even if you are brand new to photographer, we feel you will quickly and easily be able to pick the lens up and put it to work without having to spend much time playing with it.

Click Here To Check For Prices On The Rokinon 8mm Fisheye Lens!

Performance And Functionality

Now we move on to our next section of the article, the performance and functionality of the lens. We feel that this is definatley the lenses strongest area as it offers some amazing performance for its price point in the market and we feel that it will allow you to capture some excellent fisheye photographs with your Nikon d5500 that have an excellent image quality.

We absolutely love the photograph above as we feel that it does a great job of showcasing the fisheye effect that the Rokinon 8mm lens is able to provide your Nikon d5500 while also doing a great job of showcasing the lenses performance in different light conditions. The f/3.5 aperture on the lens offers some excellent low light performance, especially at this price point allowing you to get very creative with your fisheye photography while getting some excellent photographs with your d5500.

Although the photograph below is not one of ours, it was captured with the Rokinon 8mm and we felt that we just had to include it in this article as again, we feel it does a great job of showing just how well this light can perform in varied lighting conditions while still giving that great fisheye aspect. It also does a solid job of replicating the varied colors in these conditions too.

As we mentioned previously, this is a fixed 8mm focal length prime lens with a great field of view for inside buildings too. We wanted to share the photograph below that was also captured with the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens to share the kind of image quality that you can expect when using it indoors with ideal lighting conditions rather than just showing off its low light performance.

The final example photography captured with the Rokinon 8mm below shows the lens being used for timelapse photography while also taking advantage of its fisheye field of view. Although we doubt many people will be using the lens in this way, we thought it was a pretty cool concept and wanted to share the photographers work with our readers as it may inspire you to try something like this for yourself.

As our regular readers will know, we do like to show as many example photographers captured with any lenses we recommend to our readers as possible. We feel that a picture paints a thousand words and does a great job of inspiring you to how you would be able to put the lens to use as part of your collection of camera accessories.

That said, we also want to cover a few specifics that example photographs are unable to show off so here we go. The Rokinon 8mm offers a 180 degree angle of view to allow you to manipulate your images as required to get some of the best possible fisheye photographs possible at this price point in the market. The built-in petal hood offers decent protection for the forward lens element without actually showing up in the frame and is included with your purchase of the lens as standard.

[the_ad id=”5489″]

The lens is based around Ten elements working in Seven groups while offering a pretty decent aperture range of f/3.5-22 meaning that no matter the conditions, you can snap away and capture all the fisheye photographs you want with your Nikon d5500.

Rokinon has earned a reputation for their products offering the best possible performance at the lowest possible price and we are thankful to be able to report this expectation holds true with their 8mm lens too. It is easy to see why it has such an excellent reputation within the fisheye photography community and is considered one of the best lenses at this price point with little to no real competition.

Click Here To Check For Prices On The Rokinon 8mm Fisheye Lens!

Build Quality And Design

Unlike some of the other brands that have tried to dip their toes in the fisheye niche and released a sub-standard lens with a poor build quality, Rokinon dove in head first and kept the solid build quality of their products as a key priority. The lens has been designed very well and its build quality is solid offering you the best of both worlds and putting many of the competing lenses at this price point to shame.

The plastics used on parts of the lens are high quality and robust while also lightweight to help keep its weight as low as possible. In addition to this, as we touched on earlier, the manual focus ring has been texturized with rubber to help improve its usability. The actual lens mount is solid and will allow you to quickly and easily mount or unmount the lens from your Nikon d5500 without issue too.

Although we were unable to find the exact type of glass used for the lens elements, it definatley appears to be of the best quality possible for a lens at this price point in the market. Additionally, while we were checking out some reports from people who use the Rokinon 8mm as a part of their daily camera rig, we were unable to find any complaints from photographers using the lens extensively about issues with the lens glass.

Although not an officially listed feature, the lens does seem to have both dust proofing and water resistant sealings to help ensure the lens will serve you well for many years to come. There really isn’t much else to say about the build quality of the lens as we couldn’t find a single thing we didn’t like about it so we will just move on to the next section.

Click Here To Check For Prices On The Rokinon 8mm Fisheye Lens!

FAQs

Question – Does the Rokinon 8mm have autofocus?

Answer – No, there is no autofocus technology on the lens but we feel this is the best way to go with fisheye photography due to the unique aspect ratios and fields of view that you are working with.

Question – What’s the difference between the Nikon AE and Nikon variants of the lens?

Answer – The AE version contains a chip that allows it to transfer metering information to your camera body but it still remains a manual lens.

Question – Can the Rokinon 8mm be used for landscape photography?

Answer – No, we would not recommend this lens for regular landscape photography. It has specifically been designed to have an ultra wide field of view supporting 180-degree fisheye photography.

Third Party Reports

As always, we wanted to share a review of the lens from an external photographer so our readers are able to get a well-rounded opinion of the lens. We feel that Christopher Frost puts out some of the best reviews in the space so decided to embed his video review of the lens above. Just keep in mind, the variant he has in the video is the Samyang 8mm but as we explained at the start of the article, they are the exact same lens just with different branding.

If you like, you can also click here to read some other third party reports of the lens from independent photographers who either currently are or recently have used the Rokinon 8mm as their go to lens of choice or as a part of their regular camera kit.

Our Verdict

We feel that about covers why we feel the Rokinon 8mm is the best fisheye lens for Nikon d5500 camera owners on the market right now. It’s ultra wide angle will offer you an excellent image quality for your fisheye photography while making an excellent addition to your collection of camera accessories.

Click Here To Read Independent Third Party Reviews Of This Product!

Click Here To Check For Prices On This Product!

Image Licensing

Shared under Creative Commons – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

ChrisDag – fisheye fenway park – https://flic.kr/p/6HoLbQ