30 October 2011, Singapore – Recently, Canon launched the EF 8-15 mm F/4L fisheye USM lens and I had the opportunity to try it out for a day and was thrilled by the taking distorted photos at the Voyage Night Festival organized by the National Museum of Singapore. Using my Canon 500D, it sure gave a different perspective to things.
For a first-time fisheye lens user, I was surprise how easy it was to handle. I played around with the different angles of composition with this lens and was surprised at the after effects.
Canon’s previous fisheye lens launched in the late 80s was a fixed 15mm lens (EF 15mm f/2.8 fisheye) and on a cropped body (24mm equivalent). The full range of the fisheye and its signature effect would easily be lost as the image fringes are not projected onto the smaller sensor. The new zooming fisheye allows significantly greater effect on cropped sensor cameras by retracting to 10mm (16mm equivalent) or 8mm with slight vignetting.
Specifications
- Constant maximum aperture of f/4, minimum aperture of f/22
- 180-degree angle of view
- 14 glass elements in 11 groups
- 7-bladed aperture
- Minimum focusing distance of 0.15m/0.48ft
The lens retails at S$2399 in Singapore.
Check out Jan Shim’s more in-depth hands-on review at Hands-On: Canon’s New Concept EF 8-15 mm f/4 L Fisheye Lens.
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