Review - Canon EF 8-15 f/4L Fisheye

[Canon Rumors]

Discuss the review of the Canon EF 8-15 f/4L Fisheye

[Daniel Flather]

Your review is the first one not to complain about the hood and lens cap.  I find the them fine, others seem to have issues.  Bokeh is not a feature when it comes to fisheye lenses, but this lens' bokeh is ugly.  Not that it's an issue with the massive DoF.

[bkorcel]

Actually the only thing the hood is good for is peripheral protection of the front element.  Unless I'm going for a 180 degree shot I just leave it on for that extra protective ring.  The flourine coatings on these are super hard and dust/grime resistant and fortunately easily cleaned with a dry lens cloth.  Though I have used eyeglass cleaner to get rid of rain spots, most should never need more than a clean dry cotton lint free cloth.

As noted in the article fish eyes are not for everyone.  I reserve this lens for extreme close up work where I just need the short working range this lens provides.  It's great for in car photography and video.  I've used it also in drive through safari's where animals come up to your window.  It's also been useful during hikes and rock climbs where you cant always back up to get your subject in view.  You can honestly shoot a person from 2 feet away and capture nearly all of them and decent background so I would say this is good for people who like rock climbing or caving where you just don't have the luxury of distance to capture your subject.

I have tried being creative with the distortions but I dont find it too practical in that sense.  It's just another tool in the bag when a 20 or 24mm lens just isn't wide enough or when you need to film in close confinement such as in a car.

[TrumpetPower!]

I like the theoretical idea of the full 180° circle this lens has at 8 mm...but how useful is it outside of making QuickTime panoramas and scientific imaging? For example, what's an 8mm shot of the night sky look like, or what else can one artistically do at 8mm?

b&

[digitalz]

This fisheye is awesome!

[TexPhoto]

The first image in the article is almost certainly shot at 10mm and labeled as 8mm.

I love this lens, and have always loved fisheye.  I find the circular fisheye much less useful, but still cool.  Full faram fisheye on my 5DIII AND my 7D? AND my 1D Mark IV?  Awsome.

A couple tips: 1. It's still full frame on a FF, at about 14mm, and even wider.
2. When shooting circular, I zoom to about 8.5-9mm so I don't have black borders on top and bottom, then I crop to circle in photoshop.  This has more "perfect" circular edges and gets you more verticle (and horizontal) pixels that are not just black.
3. Crop circular images to square, and more web services (flickr etc) will display them significantly larger..


REX_9674 by RexPhoto91, on Flickr


Untitled by RexPhoto91, on Flickr


Untitled by RexPhoto91, on Flickr


IMG_5331 by RexPhoto91, on Flickr

[robbymack]

This fisheye is awesome!

There is good and bad fisheye, this is an example of the former. Awesome!

[nightbreath]

Pictured below is the National Gallery of Canada, and zoomed in you can also see Parliament Hill, the US Consulate, and Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica.

I don't see the image.

[Pag]

Samyang has a much cheaper fish eye for crop sensors that's a lot of fun to play with. It's fully manual, but it's not exactly hard to focus a lens with that kind of DOF.

[TrumpetPower!]

Samyang has a much cheaper fish eye for crop sensors that's a lot of fun to play with. It's fully manual, but it's not exactly hard to focus a lens with that kind of DOF.

There're lots of fisheye options out there. What sets this one apart is that it's a full-frame zoom that ranges from 180° full-hemisphere coverage to the standard 180° diagonal coverage. And, of course, that it's a Canon L lens.

If you were wanting both an 8 mm and a 15 mm fisheye lens for full frame, then your only other option at B&H would be the pair of Sigmas. The Sigma 8mm is $900, and the Sigma 15mm is $600...for a combined price of $150 more than the Canon zoom.

Of course, if you were only looking for the one or the other focal length, you could save quite a bit of money by just getting that one -- and there're a lot of inexpensive options for APS-C cameras, as well (including a bunch of ~$300 8mm f/3.5 lenses and a $700 Tokina 10-17 zoom).

b&

[rcarca]

I enjoy the lens. I would not say I have mastered it by any means (or any aspect of photography for that matter), but here are a couple of shots taken on a 7D:


Dubai by RCARCARCA, on Flickr



Back to Dublin (again) by RCARCARCA, on Flickr



Back to Dublin (again) by RCARCARCA, on Flickr


It also has its bad uses:

Awayday by RCARCARCA, on Flickr

Richard

[JVLphoto]

Your review is the first one not to complain about the hood and lens cap.  I find the them fine, others seem to have issues.  Bokeh is not a feature when it comes to fisheye lenses, but this lens' bokeh is ugly.  Not that it's an issue with the massive DoF.

Yeah, I just didn't use it - if you shoot full frame there's no good reason to keep it on so I just twisted it off with the lens cap every time.  On a crop it's slightly helpful, I suppose, but with a protruding front element like that even a hood isn't going to save it if you're careless.

[JVLphoto]

This fisheye is awesome!

Yeah - that SHOT is awesome - that's the kind of thing it's good for... y'know, if I ever get inside a jet

[JVLphoto]

The first image in the article is almost certainly shot at 10mm and labeled as 8mm.

Ack! You're totally right - sorry everyone - that first image is at 10mm which is where the "lock" comes into play on lens (useful for crop sensor)

[chief3]

I find using the 15mm fisheye correction setting in LR4 good enough to fix curvature when shooting around 12-14mm.

The review points out you cannot put filters on the lens...I've found using ND gel filters on the rear help me wide angle long exposure shots...