File:A tale of two fisheyes (365-136) (5731081142).jpg

Forgot to post this last night - I can see how easy it is to bust a 365 if you're not paying attention, and especially when Girl has homework drama and I'm cooking (In her words, "Dad, never, ever try to cook anything ever again. Ever"). But the image was shot yesterday, so I figure I'm still in technical compliance with Flickr law.

Anyway, this is a not-very interesting tale of two fisheye lenses. When I bought my 5D, I wanted to have an ultrawide lens to go with it. Since the distinctive fisheye look is not something I'm going use every day, I thought I could go cheap. I picked up a new Zenitar 16mm f2.8 on eBay for bargain price. But you know what they say, "Pay up front for quality and cry only once." Besides not talking with the Canon's brain, the manual-focus Russian lens had an ominous flaw: the rear element and mirror occasionally clashed. Not a good thing -- a showstopper, really. So the lens languished in my camera odds and ends drawer, along with seldom used filters and lens covers for long lost cameras.

So, last week I pulled the trigger for a real Canon 15mm 2.8. While actively waiting for UPS to deliver my new toy from Adorama, I got to thinking about the Zenitar in my junk drawer. Looking at the cheesy adapter, I found it simply unscrewed, revealing a good-old Pentax screw mount (AKA, Praktica screw mount, M42 Mount). Well, I've got an Praktica and of course, it was a perfect fit. So I ran a roll of outdated Kodak 200 Gold through it. When stopped down, it had reasonable sharpness and a certain lomo charm (if that's not an oxymoron). It seems to have a funny colorcast, although that could have been from the $2 film from the supermarket closeout bin or the one-hour-photo processing.

The new 15mm arrived yesterday and I shall shoot something with it today. Be that as it may, it's kind of strange that buying a sparkling new Japanese lens inadvertently helped combine two Soviet-era relics into something useful. Well, sort of useful.