Bower Lenses?

[Ben]

Does anyone have any experience with these? I've never heard of them before. I just saw a deal on an ultra-wide at Amazon. The price was good. There weren't many reviews, which leads me to believe these are fairly new. The few reviews there were seemed to be mostly good though. The one lens I'm lacking for what I consider a complete set for my needs/wants is something in the 9-11MM range. Nikon lenses in that range are pretty pricey.

[geronimotwo]

sorry, no experience with their lenses, or lenses that short.  the widest i've ever gone was 18mm.  what would you use it for?

[Ben]

For use, kind of a lark lens really. Getting super close to stuff for more interesting perspectives. I've also seen some pretty neat nighttime landscapes / starscapes done with ultra wides. Ken Rockwell also has some neat stuff on his site that I'd like to try.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/how-to-use-ultra-wide-lenses.htm

The fact that it's not a "must have" for me is why I'm looking outside of Nikon lenses. Just can't justify the Nikon price for a lens I won't use a ton (or who knows, maybe I will). I put the major chunk of my lens money into my Nikon 18-200, which is the lens I use 75% of the time. I have  Nikon 35MM, but the Nikon prime lenses (I have a DX) are so freakin' cheap there was no reason not to go brand with it. My third lens is a Sigma 150-500, which I was leery about at first, but is actually a really nice lens, especially for the price, and why I wouldn't hesitate to get another proven non-Nikon lens, especially for limited use lenses.