New York, NY (December 24, 2009) – Pro-Optic announces the 8mm Pro-Optic Fish-Eye lens, featuring a breakthrough in optical design for the first affordable fish-eye lens designed for digital SLRs that have APS-sized sensors.

Most fish-eye lenses are designed for cameras with 35mm-sized sensors and when placed on an APS sensor, the edges of the image are cut off. Not so with the Pro-Optic Fish-Eye lens. The new lens is designed for sensors that range from 20.7x13.8mm to 28.7x19.1mm, and the multiplication factor will range from 1.5 to 1.6X.

The well-constructed and precision-designed lens features a built-in lens hood and a sturdy, locking lens cap to protect the large front element from damage when it’s stored. It is computer-optimized to produce clear, crisp photographs, which is critical for a lens like this because it is capable of such extreme depth of field. Exclusively available from Adorama (www.adorama.com), the lens has a price of $289.95, and is available in Canon, Nikon, Pentax, and Sony/Minolta mounts.

This beautifully finished lens offers great optical performance at a price that’s not much more than some fish-eye adapters, and much, much less than dedicated fish-eye lenses available from camera manufacturers.

“One way we kept the price low,” says Jerry Deutsch, Adorama’s Director of Marketing, “was to make the lens manual focus but it has a silky-smooth focusing medium making it a snap to bring the image into crisp focus. And with such extensive depth-of-field produced by the 8mm focal length, focusing is less critical than it might be at longer focal lengths.” The trade-off is for the lens’s lower price is a little focusing effort, and Jerry thinks that “most consumers are willing to make that compromise to get the sharp images that the 8mm Pro-Optic Fish-Eye lens produces.”

8mm f/3.5 Pro-Optic Fish-Eye lens specifications:
10 elements in 7 groups
Aperture range f/3.5-22
180-degree field of view with APS sensor
Manual focus
Close-focus to 12 inches
Size: 3x3 inches
Weight: 14.6-15.63 oz, depending on mount

The 8mm f/3.5 Pro-0ptic Fish-Eye lens is compact and has an aperture range capable of the ultimate in depth-of-field and makes focusing less critical when set at its smaller apertures. Its full 180-degree field of view produces the kind of super wide-angle view found only in much more expensive lenses. With the ability to focus to a foot away, users will be able to produce truly unusual and dramatic close-up photographs.

The lens’s light weight and compact size make it ideal for travel photographers who want to add new perspectives to their work. The lens is also perfect for architectural interiors, landscapes, and special effects photography.

Photographers who love to work with digital infrared capture will find the 8mm Pro-Optic Fish-Eye lens is just the thing for their explorations of that creative medium. Best of all, photographers looking to expand their view of the world will discover that the 8mm f/3.5 Pro-Optic Fish-Eye lens is the perfect compliment to those explorations.