Fisheye lens for canon..

Chris Y

Chris Y

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Opening a debate...

IMO a Fisheye lens is a one trick pony as part of a lens collection..

Have been looking at 3 options.

Canon Fisheye lens - great build, a lot of £...

Other brand Fisheye, seen for sale from £170 - £250 samyang manual etc

Fisheye filters - from £10-£50...are these any good and worth a punt at the low cost for something you wouldn't use everyday??

Has anyone actualy used a filter to great use in favour of filling out £500 for a fully auto canon?

Cheers

C
 
OK, I'll come clean right away and tell you I shoot Nikon rather than Canon. However, I do have and use a fisheye lens. Not a Nikkor (I'm not made of money!) but a Sigma 8mm which gives a full circular image covering 180° on 35mm film and Fx digital. It's AF and was a lucky find on the forum here - IIRC, it cost me £220 inc P&P. The DoF from such a wide angle lens means that MF is a real option - let a small aperture deal with any slight focus inaccuracy.

Not used a fishing filter/supplemetary lens but can't see that they'll get that close to the real thing. To see how much I liked and wanted the effect, I bought myself a Lomo Fisheye 35mm plastic camera and was hooked!

As you rightly say, a fisheye is a bit of a one trick pony but if you want that trick, you need that pony. I wouldn't pay the current retail price for a new one but I'm glad I've got one.

Not sure what Stewart (lensesforhire) has in the way of Canon fisheyes but it's almost certainly worth hiring one to see how you get on with it.
Click for a link to his relevant page
 
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for canon 1.6x sensors the pick of the bunch up until now has been the tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom. I guess the new canon 8-15mm will be even better. sigma 8mm will vignette on anything - this sucks unless you want it? A 15mm fisheye on canon 1.6x cameras will just produce ugly slightly distorted moderately wideangle shots.
 
IMO a Fisheye lens is a one trick pony as part of a lens collection..

Have been looking at 3 options.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make sense to me.You start off by virtually saying a fisheye is a waste of time and then mentioning the 3 you are looking at.:thinking:

Personally I love them.I've had a Samyang 8mm when on a cropper and though it was the best £200 I have ever spent on a lens.
On full frame I've had 2 Sigma 15mm Fisheyes and loved them both(got the 2nd one because the first one went walkabout while I was photographing a wedding).
Just go to Flickr and type in "fisheye" and you will see that they can be used for lots of different subjects.When used creatively they can turn out some excellent "different" pictures.

Cheers
Gary
 
Good points, thanks.

Not meant as a waste of time, just limited for use. I love the effect but it's for that use alone. Have done a fair bit of reading up, just interested to get a wider opinion.

Am more than likely going to go for a Samyang or Sigma as have waxed my hard earnt £ on a 70-200L..


C
 
Ive just bought the Samyang recently also for my D5000 and i love it! I find that its very versatile but i need to get out and get creative.
Heres a couple of pics ive took with it. Nothing amazing really but these were my first time using it.
FisheyeLakeBestPic.jpg


Schnauzer.jpg


As mentioned on Flickr theres a Samyang Group with some amazing photos. The fact that its manual focus doesnt seem to make any difference as i find its never out of focus in the short time ive had it at around f10.
Phil
 
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Tamron also do a couple of spiffing little ultra wide angles, namely the 11-18mm and the 10-24mm, I've been thinking about the 10-24 myself
 
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