nikon

A truly fun piece of glass and I use it as both a toy and a tool. I love to shoot people and objects with it and see what the distortion does to the image, but it's also incredibly useful when you have no room to work or back up. I found it especially useful in the confined spaces of aircraft cockpits. But that fine thread to mount it on the camera drives me nuts! Especially when I'm in the confined space of something like an aircraft cockpit. But I always put it in my kit when on the road.

* Best, Simple, High Quality Lens
* Not expensive
* Don't set F1/F2 lens, and you can get more effects, and more funny pictures
* Requires more light -> use bracketing, manual exposure or exposure correction

Slipped right on the CoolPix 995. Almost slipped onto the floor as well - the lens cover is nice, but held on by friction between a felt strip inside the cover and the side of the lens. It's second nature to pick it up by the lens cover. And the lens falls right out. Be warned! I caught mine just in time and spend 5 minutes cleaning off finger prints. This is a common complaint from people I know who own this lens. The rear lens cover is a pain - not fully threaded and a pain to get on. Enough of the 'bitchin.

The lens itself is great. I had a Tiffen wide angle on my old Kodak DC290 - this Nikon is far superior. The camera has two Fisheye lens presets that adjusts and locks the camera's settings for optimum results. The resulting photo can be dark if taken indoors (the flash is automatically disabled) - but a few seconds in PhotoShop increasing the contrast and brightness fixed it right up (try that with a film camera!)

For [this price] you can't beat this lens. If you plan on doing panoramic or full room shots, get it. Example: I stood my tripod in a corner facing the center of a room. It captured EVERYTHING, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, except what was directly behind the camera. I then import the resulting image into a panoramic editor, output a Quicktime VR file (takes under 20 minutes total), and have a virtual view of the room. Cool. Plus everyone who sees it asks "is that a lens?!?!"