Canon News has uncovered a patent for an RF 8mm f/4 fisheye optical formula. By the looks of the patent translation, this is likely for full-frame image sensors.
This fisheye design has a full 180-degree angle of view.
Canon RF 8mm F4.0 Fisheye
- Focal length: 8.05mm
- F-number: 4.00
- Angle of view: 90.07°
- Image height: 11.40mm
- Lens length: 70.43mm
- BF: 16.93mm
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Yep, I find it mostly useless. In the meantime it's a MUST underwater. But a fix focal length one? Nah, that's outdated. The zoom fisheye is a great thing.
Be patient young Padawan ;)
I agree. I use mine only occasionally, but the 15 mm end is more important than the 8 mm. I guess is it's very small and light there could be a case for it.
A LOT of stuff people are pantingly eager for on here when it's speculated about makes me say "So what?" BUT it's all good news for me anyway. If they put money into developing such things, it means there's a market, and furthermore that they have the resources to chase that market, which together mean they'll certainly develop something more pedestrian that I will be interested in, at some point.
Patent Public Search | USPTO
Reading the details, it could become a zoom design, as in the current 8-15, but this patent looks at improving correction of aberrations
from
Canon RF / EF Lenses – rumours and news ;-)
I guess one point is that an FF circular fisheye almost covers an APS-C sensor (or an APS-C crop of a larger sensor). So with a little distortion/vignetting correction it also functions as a rectangular APS-C fisheye.
The 15 mm end is more versatile then the 8mm end which does have very few usecases in my opinion.
Frank
It’s not just about focal length. A fisheye lets you capture action at very close range with a huge DOF. This is why the GoPro became so popular. These lenses are invaluable for underwater photography. To get the same DOF on my 14mm f/2.8 I need to stop down to f/11 or f/14. That’s a significant loss of light. There are other conditions that make autofocus and flash photography an issue like having so many moving points (fish, coral, zooplankton) while also being poorly lit. An RF body with it’s ability to focus in the dark along with a large DOF will massively increase my number of useable underwater shots.
i have the older 15 mm fisheye. Don’t use it very often.
2) scientific applications
3) security applications
4) gimmicky/novel/B-roll sports stuff
5) I've occasionally used a fisheye lens for landscape photography when I needed something wider than 14mm, and the composition allowed me to put the horizon through the middle of the frame, which made the fisheye projection less annoying and obvious
6) Interior architecture (often defished in one axis)
In short, a fisheye has occasional applications, but gets annoying if overused.
Keep it at $300.00 USD.
A good 20mm f2.8 at no more than $300 USD. With computers and machines it should be easy to have superb quality at a decent price.
It ist not for every shot of course, but shooting portraits with that lens is maximum fun. (It's a little expensive fun, but maximum of it, at least.)
It's not easy to frame an acceptable portrait, but when the composition works, those are eye-catchers. I've used it at 8mm for group portraits, too, in a football huddle-style, putting the camera on the ground with the lens facing upwards and the people looking down to the camera. Also nice for food-shots or as macro for flowers. (You can get really, really close, I think with a slim extender it's even possible to capture a spider or fly that crawls over the front lens from underneath, I haven't tried, though - “If your photos aren't good enough, then you're not close enough” – Robert Capa).