I am interested in purchasing a 15mm or 18mm nikon nikkor lens for this system. Is anyone using these lenses with this system. Any problem with vinetting? Is the t3.5 too slow for use with the mini 35? I like the distortion that comes with this wide of an angle lens, any suggestions, about makes, models etc..??

You shouldn't get any vignetting. However, be aware that you won't see as much distortion as you're used to either.

The 35mm still-camera frame (which is probably what you're used to seeing these lenses used on) is twice as big as the 35mm movie-camera frame (which is the size the mini35 uses). So when using one of those lenses on the mini35, the camera will only be seeing out of the central subsection of the lens, not the full view -- and most of the distortion is most noticeable on the edges. Those edges will be "cut off" on the mini35.

You might get the results you're looking from from the 8mm Peleng lens. I've used that on the mini35 and it's extremely wide-angle, no vignetting, and gives that music-video fisheye-style look.

Any advise on non fish eye wide angle lenses? Around the 8-15mm range?

Dan:

I would consider between 8 and 10mm to be "pretty damn wide" for 35mm cine framing.

I was under the impression that wide lenses could be either fish eye or not. If this is not the case I am curious why certain lenses are fish eye in a certain frocal length while others in the same focal length are not.

Quite right Dan. That said 8-10mm is reall quite wide! Not a bad thing of course. You can have wide without going fisheye. You will of course have slight distortion around the edges normal of wide angle.

I believe the term you're looking for is "rectilinear", which means basically that the lens is designed to minimize the barrel distortion that happens in wider-angle lenses.

Any 35mm still-camera lens (like a Nikkor) will be less "fisheye" when used on a mini35 or movie camera. The still camera sees the full "circle", whereas the movie camera only sees about half the frame, so much of the vignetting on a fisheye will be cut off of the frame on a movie camera.

For example, the Peleng 8mm is a full-circle full-frame fisheye when used on a 35mm still camera, meaning that the picture it produces is a circular shape, with a black vignetted circular border all around the frame. However when mounted on my 35mm movie camera, there's no vignetting at all. It's just a really wide-angle lens, really really wide-angle, with a lot of barrel distortion.

Somewhere here I've got a Pentax 17mm "fisheye" lens, and I believe that when it's mounted on the movie camera it looks basically square, little to no barrel distortion unless you're really close to the subject. I'd have to dig it out to try it to know for sure...

... so if you were able to find a still-camera lens in those focal lengths that claims to be "rectilinear" on a 35mm still camera, you could be reasonably sure that you won't have barrel distortion on a mini35 system.