Dorr 12mm f/7.4 Fisheye Wide-Angle Lens Review

Dorr 12mm f/7.4 Fisheye Wide-Angle Handling and Features

For a lens pitching in at the budget end, build quality is very high. The lens barrel and bayonet are constructed from metal and the narrow manual focus ring is silky-smooth in operation. Even so, the lens is lightweight, tipping the scales at 220g and it balances well with the Sony NEX-7 camera used for testing.

Focusing is performed internally, so the lens barrel does not extend during focusing.  A partial hood is built into the front of the lens which helps to protect the front element from bumps and scrapes. Due to the positioning of the narrow focusing ring, and the shape of the hood, it can be very easy to let your finger slip into the view of the lens, marring the corner of images. So long as suitable caution is taken, this can be avoided.



No minimum focus distance is specified for this lens and the only distance marked on the focus scale is half a metre. The focusing ring travel way beyond this point, and I'd question the accuracy of the marked distance, as it seems way off in use. Luckily, due to the slow fixed aperture, the huge depth of field this lens provides can be very forgiving.

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