Very, very impressed by the Canon 8-15

I've loved my Sigma 15mm f/2.8 fisheye, used primarily on my 5D. It's crazy good optically, wide and fast.

But I just got a 7DII, which I'm loving so far. So I decided to get the Canon 8-15.

First, it is a stop slower, but the 7DII is much better at high ISO, so that's a wash.

The 8-15 is actually capable of going a bit wider on the 7DII than the Sigma 15 on the 5D, so that's nice. Oddly, it's a little wider on the 5D than the 7D before the vignette (at around 14mm versus around 9mm). It's not a huge difference, but I don't understand it. Maybe it's because the lens moves in and out a bit.

At longer focal lengths on the 7DII, it's quite good for defishing and/or cropping. That makes it a pretty solid ultrawide rectilinear from just a single click in Lightroom. The Sigma can do that as well, but it needs more cropping and that costs a lot more of the 5D's 12.8MP.

The 8-15 is just flat tack-sharp wide open and up, all the way to the very edges.

And at 8mm on the 5D, well, it's try 180° all the way around.

The hood is mostly for protection, and the lens cap system isn't as goofy or flimsy as some have made it out to be. It's okay.

Fast focusing, small, light, sharp, flexible, I don't know what else you'd want from a lens. Okay, faster would be nice, but I'll be testing my new Sigma 18-35/1.8 next!

Where are the pictures???

I've thought about that lens every once in a while.

If price were no object would you have sprung for the 11-24 instead?

rowlandw wrote:

If price were no object would you have sprung for the 11-24 instead?

Not even for half the price.

Interesting - your reason?  The 11-24 is out of my league but I've mulled over getting the 8-15.

rowlandw wrote:

Interesting - your reason? The 11-24 is out of my league but I've mulled over getting the 8-15.

Well, I got a 17-40L when I was shooting my 10D. It was my standard zoom (no EF-s at the time). It wasn't very wide so I bought the Sigma 15mm fisheye. When I got the 5D+24-105, that became my standard zoom and the 17-40L became my rectilinear ultrawide. I thought I would never use the fisheye on full-frame. But it didn't work out that way.

As you get wider and wider, it becomes harder and harder to find subjects that don't looks really crazy in the corners when shooting fully rectilinear. I think the cutoff is around 16-18mm before things start to get really tough. Some of the DPReview 5Ds examples, many of which were shot with the 11-24, show this problem. Like this one:

And this one:

Look at the stuff in the top and top corners.

So, I got a little tired of shooting messed up looking shots like those with the 17-40L. Some things are fine, a lot of things aren't. Like this one:

Looks a lot better in fisheye projection, don't you think?

The more I shot with the fisheye, the more I got used to it. The more I got used to it, the more I liked it.

The more I liked it, the more I shot with it.

On the last major vacation I went on, I shot 42% of my shots with the 15mm fisheye on full-frame.

And I even crop and defish a few of them.  With the 8-15, I can do that a lot more, and use it just like a rectilinear ultrawide in the 14-24 range.  I could use it all the way to 11mm equivalent, but like I said, I don't really like those shots, usually.

Tnx for that - I prefer wide angle and have the Canon 15 fisheye, Canon 17-40, Sigma 8-16 for crop, Rokinon 14 and now the Tamron 15-30 which is good at avoiding distortion and flare, and is very sharp. (One reason I got the Tammy is it has the best handholdability in low light (15mm-IS-f/2.8) and it feels like holding onto a fixed object.) I too thought the wide end of the 11-14 was a bit extreme re: the corner distortion you mention (as well as the cost). Based on your post I'll probably rent the 8-15 for a better look.

rowlandw wrote:

Tnx for that - I prefer wide angle and have the Canon 15 fisheye, Canon 17-40, Sigma 8-16 for crop, Rokinon 14 and now the Tamron 15-30 which is good at avoiding distortion and flare, and is very sharp. (One reason I got the Tammy is it has the best handholdability in low light (15mm-IS-f/2.8) and it feels like holding onto a fixed object.) I too thought the wide end of the 11-14 was a bit extreme re: the corner distortion you mention (as well as the cost). Based on your post I'll probably rent the 8-15 for a better look.

On crop, think of it like this (these are approximate):

• 8mm=8mm rectilinear
• 9mm=10mm rectilinear
• 10mm=12mm rectilinear
• 11mm=14mm rectilinear
• 12mm=16mm rectilinear
• 13mm=18mm rectilinear
• 14mm=20mm rectilinear
• 15mm=22mm rectilinear

As I said, 16-18mm is about my limit for rectilinear, so I'd try not to fully defish if I'm below 12mm on a crop camera.

Another thing I've been doing a lot lately is using Lightroom's geometric distortion slider in the profile.  You can set it to anything from 0 (no correction) to 200 (twice the nominal correction, which is 100).  I've routinely found that full-frame fisheye shots look best in the 20-70 range which is notably not at 0 and not at 100, which are the two ways most people think of a lens (fisheye or rectilinear).  Yes, some shots are best at full rectilinear, but not at 15mm on full-frame or 9-10mm on crop.

I got one of these lenses as a CPS loaner. I was very impressed. I used it on my 5D mk II. Fun lens. Might have to buy one to have in my bag.

Jim

Canon 8-15 at 8 mm

Canon 8-15 at 15 mm

Again, thanks for this analysys.  I've never seen this "perspective" on UWA rectilinear vs fisheye and the limitations and compensations for both.

Thanks for your user report. Now that I have acquired an EOS M3, and the EF-to-M adapter, I have developed a new interest in this EF Fisheye. EOS M cameras do have rather slow AF when using the adapter, but this Fisheye has a relatively short amount of travel during AF.

but I just shoot FF and I also need the extra stop.  I spent a little extra (okay double) and got the 14L II instead and kept the sigma 15mm FE.

Lee Jay wrote:

I've loved my Sigma 15mm f/2.8 fisheye, used primarily on my 5D. It's crazy good optically, wide and fast.

But I just got a 7DII, which I'm loving so far. So I decided to get the Canon 8-15.

First, it is a stop slower, but the 7DII is much better at high ISO, so that's a wash.

The 8-15 is actually capable of going a bit wider on the 7DII than the Sigma 15 on the 5D, so that's nice. Oddly, it's a little wider on the 5D than the 7D before the vignette (at around 14mm versus around 9mm). It's not a huge difference, but I don't understand it. Maybe it's because the lens moves in and out a bit.

The 8-15 is just flat tack-sharp wide open and up, all the way to the very edges.

I'm jealous!

Jay Brookstone wrote:

It's basically an effects lens, not a rectilinear wide-angle substitute.

I hate that term.  Fisheye is not an effect and I usually shoot my fisheye shots so you can't easily tell it was taken with a fisheye.  And it can be a rectilinear ultrawide substitute.  I just finished comparing the 8-15 at the long end to my 17-40L on full frame.  Very similar.

By its nature, a fish-eye is a specialty effects lens - no avoiding it.  Same as a tilt-and-shift or soft focus lens.  By definition and design it features a specific, repeatable optical distortion, which is an effect, and photographers manipulate and use this distortion to emphasize the subject or an aspect of the subject in interesting ways.

Per your observations, images made with a fish-eye lens can be post processed to make them more rectilinear, but resolution will always be sacrificed in the process.  The wider and more circular the initial image, the poorer the post-processed rectilinear image will be.  Its generally better to start with a good optically rectilinear lens in the first place.

I'm a little surprised that you only value the 8-15mm fish-eye as a post-processed rectilinear lens.

No.

I defish less than 1% of my fisheye shots.

And fisheye isn't distortion any more than rectilinear is distortion. Both are projections of a spherical world onto a flat plane and so both introduce a distorted view of that spherical world.

The 8-15 will largely be used as a fisheye because I don't like rectilinear distortion when wide angles of view are used. There are times I'll use it as a wide rectilinear at its long end for 16-18mm equivalent rectilinear images, but I suspect this will be under 5% of its usage.

My fisheye shots are hardly ever used as "effects" shots. If my undefished fisheye shots jump out at you as fisheye images, then I didn't shoot them correctly. Some are obviously fisheye, but that should not be the most obvious thing about the images. Some you can't tell are fisheye at all.
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Lee Jay