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



## Canon Rumors Guy (Oct 12, 2012)

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


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## Daniel Flather (Oct 12, 2012)

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.


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## bkorcel (Oct 12, 2012)

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.


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## TrumpetPower! (Oct 14, 2012)

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&


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## digitalz (Oct 14, 2012)

This fisheye is awesome!


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## TexPhoto (Oct 14, 2012)

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


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## robbymack (Oct 14, 2012)

digitalz said:


> This fisheye is awesome!


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


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## nightbreath (Oct 15, 2012)

> 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.


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## Pag (Oct 15, 2012)

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.


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## TrumpetPower! (Oct 16, 2012)

Pag said:


> 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&


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## rcarca (Oct 19, 2012)

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


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## JVLphoto (Oct 29, 2012)

Daniel Flather said:


> 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.


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## JVLphoto (Oct 29, 2012)

digitalz said:


> 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


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## JVLphoto (Oct 29, 2012)

TexPhoto said:


> 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)


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## chief3 (Nov 1, 2012)

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...


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## chief3 (Nov 5, 2012)

examples of the 8-15mm set to 12-14mm and corrected in LR4 w/15mm fisheye setting...


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## revup67 (Nov 12, 2012)

I had the Tokina 10-17 but dumped it as the diffraction was not worthy of keeping the lens and also the colors were not nearly as true as this lens offers. This is an excellent lens as the author states if you know how and when to use it.


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## wopbv4 (Nov 12, 2012)

bkorcel said:


> 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.




I got so frustrated with the lenscap that I have superglued the lenscap and the lenshood together, so it has become rigid. So, the lens is protected when it is in my camearbag, but is not protected at all when in use


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## bkorcel (Nov 12, 2012)

Excellent idea! I might use RTV instead just so I can put it back to factory condition when I sell it. I wonder how much a second lens hood would cost from Canon?



wopbv4 said:


> bkorcel said:
> 
> 
> > 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.
> ...


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## wopbv4 (Nov 12, 2012)

together about 80$ at B&H. I checked this before I glued them together.


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## TexPhoto (Nov 20, 2012)

It would be nice if some 3rd Party would make a one piece heavy duty Lens cap for it. Like the factory cap on the 17mm Tilt.


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## olderdog (Dec 4, 2012)

I'm getting used to the lens after buying it a couple of months back and taking it with me on one extended trip. But I also took old reliable 15mm fish which has long been one of my favorite lenses. It's not that I use it every day, but when I wants a fisheye, it's what I wants.

It is oddly enough a lens that can be used with great subtlety --or none. Optically, I'd say the new lens is better, but not to the point I'd worry about using the lighter single length 15mm. (even small amounts of weight sometimes matter to the old arthritic guy). It introduces a bit more in options with the variable zoom and it promises to let me use it with the 1.6 crops and my full frame 5D3s. It's a welcome addition.

As it happens, it's my third fisheye of the kit. I have an 8mm Russian manual focus lens, that does the full 180 or very close. Not one of my favorites but useful in the past. My working kit when I worked at this professionally included an 8mm Nikon for the Nikon F in 1963 or so. It paid for itself, the biggest problem was avoiding ad work for art directors who were on the wave with it -- something that happened after the late George Silk's sailing photography that including fish eyes afloat.


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## ondrahanus (Dec 12, 2012)

Hi there, can I see samples with this lens with 1D IV 
I can not imagine pictures on crop 1,3
or at leat explanation how it looks like.
thank you ...
OH


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## nickorando (Dec 14, 2012)

Daniel Flather said:


> 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.



In all honesty, bad though the cap/hood is, I had loads of problems with the cap on my 15mm f2.8 - it was forever falling off.


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## Txema (Dec 26, 2012)

Hi there, would it be possible to make 360º circular panoramas for virtual tours with this lens at 15mm or the sigma EX DG 15mm?
Does the canon5d mark III correct the chromatic aberrations of the sigma?


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## JonAustin (Mar 11, 2013)

I can't see where anyone has submitted this correction (update) to the review, so apologies if I'm missing it, but under "Buy the Canon EF 8-15 f/4L Fisheye Lens," the review reads:
"Err! No match for b&h." I just did a quick check, and found this lens listed at B&H for $1,499, with a current $150 instant savings:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/732107-USA/Canon_4427B002_EF_8_15mm_f_4L_Fisheye.html


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## RGF (Mar 21, 2013)

sound like a fun lens but I prefer my 14mm. At least I don't need to apply massive corrections to it.


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## PavelR (Mar 22, 2013)

ondrahanus said:


> Hi there, can I see samples with this lens with 1D IV
> I can not imagine pictures on crop 1,3
> or at leat explanation how it looks like.
> thank you ...
> OH


1.3x does not change the result significantly:


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## JVLphoto (Apr 3, 2013)

nickorando said:


> Daniel Flather said:
> 
> 
> > 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.
> ...



What he said.


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## victorwol (Apr 27, 2013)

What kind or brand of ND gel you use? Doesn't degrade the image? 

Thanks


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