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There is an effective aperture ring with some half-stop detents - but not all - and a perfectly smooth focusing ring. Goes as close as just under a foot. Heavy for the size and no sloppiness to any of the functions.
This is a lens that invites experimentation and fun. If you have a serious and dignified use for the way it bends the view of the world, you must tell us what it is. If you cannot see any distortion of reality while looking through it, I suggest to ask your physician to review your prescriptions. If it's your only lens and you plan to take all your photographs with it, please do not enter the wedding trade....
But the rest of the time it can be a hoot. You'll need to get the optical adolescent out of you early on in th piece, so shoot up a couple of cards with the lens nearly touching your friend's noses - similarly got round to the front of as many motor cars as you like and make them all look like Ferrari Testarossas. Don't do this to a real Ferrari or the owner will beat you with a stick. But get it all out of your system early so that you can go on to making some real use of the lens.
Try a large decorated interior - a cathedral or temple of some kind is perfect. Experiment with the interior shot as both a symmetrical composition and an off-set one. Look up and down as well as sideways with this lens - some of the classic fisheye shots have been from suspended cameras. remember that the results may remind you of some of the currently fashionable drone footage, but if this camera is fronting a DSLR or mirror-less via an adapter, the detail and resolution will be ever so much better.
Try a series of architecture shots - particularly if the structures you photograph have sweeping curves to begin with. You might give viewers the wrong impression of the shapes of the buildings but you will never give them a boring interpretation with a fish-eye.
Crowds? Well, they will not be shown to advantage - everyone will be distorted to some extent. But then everyone from one horizon to another will be somewhere in the image, so if you wish to evoke atmosphere this is the way to do it.
Fashion? Well, agree with the designer about what you are going to do to their vision before you start. The fisheye image in fashion promotion is very much the hippie 60's and 70's, but then fashion revolves like an expensive carousel, and eventually the Carnaby Street Curve will come back yet another time.
Landscape? About four of these is all you are going to be able to do before you have to admit to yourself that they all look alike. Save your four for natural features that will be accentuated by the curvature. Don't hit the camera club competition night four times running with fisheye landscapes or they'll throw a chair at you.
Portraiture? Well, if your subject is amenable, go ahead by all means. Don't let them be caught unawares - let them see the back of the camera before you make the 24 x 36 framed Archibald Prize photograph and send it off to be displayed. Be aware that not all people want to look like they have been run over by Picasso or a council van.
As it is, if you are compiling a record series of anything that is enclosed - like the interiors of cars - the fisheye actually does a great deal in one shot. the detail is good , but small enough that there is little camera shake recorded. And you could poke this through the open side window of even a lowered hot rod coupe and still get most of the salient features.
The shot of the editorial Suzuki is a case in point. You can still make out the stained upholstery and the junk in the central caddy, but everything else looks good.
