Bower SLY358SE Ultra-Wide 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens for Sony E (NEX) Digital

I originally bought this lens to use for wide panorama shots and for making star-trail photos, but WOW, it has blown away all expectations, and become my standard go-to lens! The fisheye is nice, as it provides 180-degree views, without too much distortion, allowing you to take photos of singular shots, crop them out in post-editing, and still have them look amazing without hardly any distortion. I have uploaded a few photos of fireworks and stars that I have taken with this lens.The ease of this lens couldn't be any better, and it's quality is superb! The first thing I noticed was how heavy it is - it's constructed very well, and made to last. I also like that it comes with it's own lens bag (standard for all Bower lens) - that makes it just that much easier to keep clean and maintained.In my excitement to try the lens, I accidentally touched the lens ever so slightly as I was putting it on my camera. The smudge wiped right off, and the coating wasn't harmed at all, and picture quality is just as good as ever. I have gotten more compliments using this lens than any other lens to date, and I absolutely could not be happier with it.I was apprehensive at first to shell out the money, but looking back, it is, without any doubt, worth every penny, and then some! This is an amazing lens, and it won't steer you wrong. If you're thinking about buying it, let me help you by saying stop reading reviews, and add it to your cart already - it won't let you down!

I've had this lens about 2 months and made 100s of exposures. It's performed flawlessly. Gives a great fish eye perspective. But you can also control the lens distortion, so everything doesn't have to look the same. I've already shot some commercial work with it. You can put the camera very close to the subject, move it around slightly while firing away. Great for sunsets. Hold it just above the spot where the water meets sand and take several exposures, tilting or panning the camera slightly between each shot. This is best done on a calm sea - use caution. you will be mere inches from salt water. But you will get a great perspective. It's great for landscapes & architecture. It's not automatic, but so what? Us old timers know that these lenses focus just fine on infinity. The sweet spot for aperture seems to be about midway or maybe a stop beyond. My Nikon D5100 plays well with this lens. Flash requires changing the settings on the flash mode from TTL to Manual - no big deal. It's a great lens for the money and every serious photographer needs to have one like this in his or her camera bag.

Got this to use with Nikon D5200, as expected, it fits & works fine with this camera.All in all, this is the budget lens, and it's mostly adequate. I looked at this lens for several months, and the price was a steady $250. When i saw it discounted to $220, I decided to jump on it.So far, i pretty much love this lens. I'm able to get some really interesting shots with it, especially when playing around with my camera's internal filter and scene settings. Images are fairly clear, with the exception of the typical distortion around the edges. But that's just the nature of the beast when playing with fisheye lenses.The one and only thing this lens doesn't offer is any level of zoom function. The description states 12" minimum focal distance, however I've noticed I'm practically brushing the lens against my subject in many photos.I'm not sure who I'd consider recommending this lens to, mostly because it is just so bloody obscene. Images are generally clear and decent, especially considering the price. But there are very few shots that require, or even look good with this amount of image distortion. I purchased it to try and learn some new tricks, give myself yet another reason to avoid adobe, and just for the fun of it. I see little value in this lens for professional purposes, aside from possibly rapid fire extreme action photography (one area it truly excels - can easily get several photos/second on moving targets!).

We bought the Canon version of this lens to use on our Canon T3i. It works very well. As noted by many other reviewers, NOTHING is automatic on this lens. Manual aperture/f-stop and manual focusing. However, this lens is extremely forgiving in the focus department.Know that you will get a strong "fisheye" effect, but "Fisheye" is right there in the name of the product, so if that surprises you, then you did not read the listing very carefully.This lens is so fun to use and really makes some close quarters shots possible that just would not be with the next-widest angle lens we have (Canon 18-55mm).The only thing I wish is that it came with a nicer or padded case, but it does have a nice drawstring bag to protect it from dust and scuffs.Really, really happy with this purchase, especially for the price. Picked this up during a lightning deal for 175. Amazing value!. :)

I am very new photography, and just got my first Canon DSRL (Rebel T6) about a few months ago. I was curious about a "fish-eye" lens for my DSLR and I found this one. First off, it's sucha nice quality and built so well. It is slightly heavy, but that just means that it is build so nice. The quality of the photos are solid, nothing crazy amazing. But, it is a very very fun lens to have! I usually like to use it when I'm with family and take photos of my niece and nephews and see them enjoy it when they view the photos. I will say that editing these photos (I usually edit on my phone with VSCO and Adobe Lightroom Mobile) are tons of fun!Overall, some practice is needed at first to get going with this lens, but it is a very fun lens! I would say that it is not an every-day lens, but it's always good to keep it in your camera bag for some spontaneous fun photos.Very fun!