The EF 8-15 f/4L Fisheye Has Landed

[Canon Rumors]

It’s in the wild!

So, the end of July date happened!

The EF 8-15 f/4L Fisheye has landed at The Camera Store in Calgary, Canada.  All 4 of the copies they had are spoken for.

I cannot find any other stores with stock at the moment.

Thanks Dave

cr

[kubelik]

well, that certainly bodes well for the rest of the product lineup ... which in turn means we may actually be seeing body announcements soon

[canonwhore]

My favorite place to shop... just saying

[Canon 14-24]

I hope you do a lens review and some images like you did with the 70-300L. If so I look forward to reading it!

[Anastas]

You can find the lens in eBay UK

[Danack]

Also available on digitalrev.com - though as I'm so terrible with wide angle composition I haven't ordered one.

[dstppy]

You can find the lens in eBay UK

You can also find an iPhone 5 . . . but they don't exist

I wonder how soon before lensrentals gets a few of these in (and can keep them in stock). 

So . . . since this finally happened, I'm now expecting to see the Cubs in the world series . . . I guess anything can happen.

[Chewy734]

I'm not really sure why people are so excited about this lens.  I honestly don't know much about this lens, so correctly if I'm wrong.  On a crop body it gives you a 180 view at all focal lengths?  And on a FF body it allows you to do a fisheye at the lower end and 180 degrees only at 15mm?

Thanks!

[neuroanatomist]

On a crop body it gives you a 180 view at all focal lengths?  And on a FF body it allows you to do a fisheye at the lower end and 180 degrees only at 15mm?

You're getting 180° at all focal lengths on all sensor formats.  The difference is that on non-FF cameras, you get 180° diagonal AoV that fills the frame (at 10mm for APS-C and 12mm for APS-H).  If you go wider than that on those formats, you get vignetting around your image (i.e. part a circle).  On a FF camera, at 8mm you get a circular fisheye, with 180° coverage all the way around (vs. just diagonal, which is the longest dimension of the sensor).

So basically, you get 'full frame fisheye' coverage for any sensor size (as opposed to the EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye, for example, where you get 'full frame fisheye' only on a FF sensor, and a cropped, less fishy version on smaller sensors), and on FF you also get the option of a true circular fisheye.

Below I took Canon's example of the different coverages and superimposed the APS-C and APS-H sensor sizes onto the FF circular (8mm) setting, to give an idea of what vignetting would be like.  On the lens itself, Canon added a zoom range limiter for APS-C and APS-H to allow you to easily avoid going too wide.

[Shawn Coates]

Dave,

Mine arrived yesterday at Don's Photo in Winnipeg. Going to pick it up today.

Shawn

[branden]

Awesome, please show off what this lens can do, I'm very excited to see how people use this creatively

[photo_enthusiast]

I just received mine today from Pictureline.com.  I've been waiting since January hoping to have it before a scheduled trip tomorrow to Montreal.  They got one to me today.  EXCELLENT, consistent, customer service.

They don't have any more to sell yet, but they say more are coming next week.

[Etienne]

might be handy on a crop camera, but it's f4, and really only good at 15mm on the 5DII

I'd rather that they update the 15 2.8 to L quality

[Chewy734]

Thanks, as usual, for the clear explanation neuroanatomist.

[neuroanatomist]

really only good at 15mm on the 5DII

How do you figure that? 

If you actually want a 180° FoV all the way around, you need to go to ~8mm on FF, for example the currently available Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG circular fisheye (or the manual focus Pelang version).  Canon used to make one, too - the old Canon FD 7.5mm f/5.6 Fisheye. 

As shown in the diagram I posted above, a lens like the EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye, which is a 'full frame fishsye, ' provides 180° FoV on the diagonal only - the horizontal FoV is 147° and the vertical FoV is 94°.

So, I'd argue this lens is most useful on a FF camera like the 5DII - on APS-C and APS-H you just get a full frame fisheye, whereas on FF you a full frame fisheye at 15mm and a circular fisheye at 8mm.