Ultra-wide lenses tend to require big and bulky optics, but Brightin Star’s refreshed 10mm lens fits in a pocket. The Brightin Star 10mm f/5.6 II Fisheye builds on a popular budget fisheye for APS-C bodies in multiple mounts with sharper images, closer focusing, and a refreshed design. And at $75 / £56, I’m highly tempted to buy one myself.
Brighton Star says the old 10mm lens received “tens of thousands” of reviews every year, but that fans of the lens have long been asking for improved sharpness along with closer focusing. The third-party lens brand has put those requests into a refresh of the lens.
The new Brightin Star 10mm f/5.6 II doesn’t have autofocus – which is rather expected for this price point. But the lens uses a longstanding trick called hyperfocal distance, which helps the lens shoot quickly without tedious focus adjustments.
Hyperfocal distance is the point on a lens that maximizes a lens’ depth-of-field. When using manual focus, mixing this specific focus distance with a narrower aperture keeps everything a specific distance from the lens to infinity sharp.
Finding the hyperfocal distance for the lens that you are using typically requires some math, but Brightin Star has designed the new lens so that there’s a mark on the lens designating where to set the lens for hyperfocal distance. Mixed with the lens’s more narrow aperture and ultra-wide view — both things that widen the depth of field – that spot helps keep most of the image in focus.
The lens has also been updated with the ability to focus closer to the front of the lens – as close as .12m / 4.7 inches.
As a fisheye 10mm, the lens captures a 173-degree field-of-view, but still creates a rectangular image rather than a circular fisheye view. Fisheyes are quirky wide angles that don’t work for every shot, but the dramatic distortion that such an ultra-wide view brings can create a fun effect for exaggerated portraits while fitting in more of the scene in a landscape.
That’s wrapped up in a compact lens that weighs on average 132g / 4.65 oz and between 31-35mm / 1.22-1.37 inches, depending on the mount. It’s available in both black and silver colorways.
The lens is available for several different mounts for crop sensors, including Sony E, Nikon Z, Fujifilm X, Micro Four Thirds, and the Canon EOS-M mount.
Perhaps the biggest selling point for the compact fisheye, however, is the price – the lens retails for about $75 / £56 (about AU$135 / CA$105). At launch, the lens is discounted by about 12 percent in an early special.
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