My new Pentax 10-17mm fisheye lens (identically optically to the Tokina one available in other mounts) arrived Saturday and I was able to use it on a trip to Seabreeze, a small local amusement park, later that day. I ended up using it a lot of the time and had a real blast with it - it's really a fun, fun lens!
Seabreeze is kind of a neat old park. It's very old (opened in 1879) and fairly small but this gives it a nostalgic charm. The tragedy of the park is that in 1994, they had a terrible fire which destroyed their 1915 carousel as well as the one-of-11 Wurlitzer 165 organ. Fortunately, just two years later, the new carousel and organ were in place. The carousel re-used the horses that survived the fire, and all the others were hand-carved - possibly the last carousel that will ever be made this way. The organ is a Belgian-built replica constructed around an original Wurlitzer tracker, and they now have the largest collection of Wurlitzer 165 rolls in the world.
Our trip was the first time we let my son Jack ride any amusement rides rides by himself, which he enjoyed...
He also got his very first rollercoaster ride, on the kiddie "Bear Trax" coaster. That's him in the second-to-last row with his mommy.
He had so much fun that he ended up riding it five times! And he was always pretty unhappy to get off when the ride was over. Poor kid! Fortunately lines were short...
Here's a fisheye photo from the carousel...
A detail photo from the top of the carousel.
Here's a shot of the organ, this is with the fisheye lens at 17mm for minimal fisheye distortion.
The other real showpiece of Seabreeze is the Jack Rabbit, built in 1920 and now the fourth-oldest coaster in the world. And it's still a blast!
One last carousel shot, more fun with the fisheye... no tripod here, just resting the camera on the rail surrounding the ride.
And a final park shot, here's the train with the log flume ride in the background.
All in all, a fun afternoon and a really fun new lens, I can't wait to play with it at
Disneyland!