Camera Labs

With a Canon APS-C body you can go linear-ultrawide with the Sigma 10-20mm, the Tamron 11-18mm, Tokina 12-24mm and the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
or fishy with the Tokina 10-17mm or the Sigma 8mm
With Nikon all the third-party lenses work ok, but it also has the 10.5mm fisheye and the linear 12-24 zoom.
If Nikon had a linear 10-22mm I would have bought it instead of my fisheye.
So if you want to go linear-ultrawide-original Canon is in a better position than Nikon. If you want to go fishy-ultrawide-original Nikon is in the lead.

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Sony has the linear AF 11-18mm 4.5-5.6 DT and no fisheye
Oly has the diagonal-fishy Zuiko digital ED 8mm 3.5 plus the linear Zuiko digital ED 7-14mm 4.0. Quite a feat!
Pentax has the smc DA 10-17mm 3.5-4.5 ED Fisheyezoom plus the 12-24mm linear

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

I had the chance to have the fisheye Nikkor 10.5 mm tested by Klaus Schroiff from photozone.de to get some lab-results too.
So here is the test-report: http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses ... /index.htm
To sum it up: nice lense, excellent sharpness but bad CA/purple fringing.

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

In a recent addition to the topic of fov, perspective, etc between fisheyes vs straight lenses, you can see some comparative shots of the same subject to make up your mind here.
I also made some test-shots of the "white dwarf" to show flare/ghosting in comparison to the other "shorts".
Will be posting soon...

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Well, here's the "white dwarf" test. This should show you how sensitive this lens is to contra light under controlled (well, almost controlled) conditions.
How is it done? Pull down the shades, picked up a mini Maglite LED and shine it at different angles directly into the lens. Before, make sure that the exposure of the otherwise dark room is not influenced by the "white dwarf". What I'll show you is a typical and a worst case. All my white dwarf shots are comparable across the different wide-angle zooms I tested.
So here is the lens at f2.8 from the side and dead on.




plus stopped down to f8

Pretty impressive, huh? Esp. the dead-on shot is very critical for many lenses.

This "lab"-performance can be repeated in real-life in a shot directly against the naked sun, like in the following shot that only shows a few small flares (@f11)

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses