Canon EF 8-15mm f / 4.0L Fisheye USM

Advantages: Variable focal lengths, build quality, focus speed, image quality, in general, everything you need from a lens with a red stripe and the letter L.

Disadvantages: Chromatic aberration at an open aperture. Treat in one click, either in the native Digital Photo Professional or in the PS, but nevertheless. And of course, you have to be careful, the front lens is not protected. Partly, maybe, the luminosity, but there is never much of it.

Comment: I was the owner of Samyang 8 mm, I became the owner of 8-15L. I use it on the crop. For your own purposes - an excellent lens, but you pay a lot of money, but you get a stable result and quality, unlike analog ones. Fish eye is useful for those who love panoramas, or who are pleased with distortion. You can take a portrait, but it turns out specifically, although the cartoons are sometimes funny ... The focal lengths are also convenient, the picture is 15mm larger than the "wide-angle" than the "fishine", you can completely remove the distortion in a few mouse clicks, by 9-11 mm - you understand that the Earth has the shape of a ball. There is a hood at 8 mm in the frame, to avoid this, a lock switch was made on the lens. I was very pleased with the sharpness of the lens, I did not expect it, to be honest. Verdict: if you know for what purpose you need a fish, you are not limited in your budget - opt for Canon 8-15L. Since June 2012, pictures that fall under the RF data can be found on my page.

Advantages: Very good image quality, two lenses in one, waterproof, high build quality, good autofocus.

Disadvantages: Chromatic aberration, bad lens hood, high price, poorly suited for manual focusing.

Comment: I bought this fish-eye for my EOS 6D to replace Bearing 8 / 3.5 (low image quality, completely manual) and Sigma 8 / 3.5 (excellent quality, but always miss the autofocus at infinity). An immediately striking drawback is a huge lid, which threatens to fall off one day and damage the front lens. To avoid this, I firmly fixed the lid on the hood - I stuck a piece of a match from the front of the lid into the slots next to each release button (thus immobilizing the latches), sticking a piece of tape on top. The design is securely held onto the lens with a spring clip. In terms of image quality, this lens is among the best fisheries on the market, despite the fact that it is a zoom. The Sigma 8mm has about the same quality (perhaps a little more subject to flare and corner bleeding), and the Bearing is already much worse. The 15mm resolution is slightly worse than the 8mm resolution. Alas, HA is typical for all fish, Canon is no exception.Autofocus is nearly perfect, which you would expect at this price point, especially compared to the Sigma, which has a slow whirring motor that starts to slow down in the cold. But focusing manually is more difficult than on analogs: on the MF scale, the distance from 1 meter to infinity is only 1 mm. It should be noted that here we have two specialized lenses (circular and diagonal fisheye) in one body with moisture protection and excellent AF. The cost of a pair of such lenses is even higher than that of the Canon 8-15. By the way, shots taken at 15 mm can be easily converted into ordinary wide-angle ones in a RAW converter, for this it is enough to select a profile for a 15 mm fisheye. I am satisfied with this lens due to its versatility and excellent quality. On the other hand, if you only need a fish-eye for shooting spherical panoramas, then you can safely take the Sigma 8 / 3.5. And I don't see much sense in the Canon 8-15 for crop camera owners, as they lose the circular fisheye, which is half the value of this lens.

Advantages: High quality glass; autofocus speed; workmanship, no backlash, no creaks, suitable for full-frame and cropped Ars-C cameras; variable focal length; beautiful drawing and color rendering.

Disadvantages: Slight chromaberrations in difficult low-light shooting conditions; the lid does not hold at all, you take the camera out of the bag without it; price

Comment: A tool for creativity, work for hands and head. There is no distortion at 15mm at the horizon point, but the coverage angle is much higher than the wide angle. Someone wrote in the discussions that it was unrealistic for them to shoot architecture, but this remark does not stand up to criticism, but the one walking will master the road. The distortion on the lens is really strong, but if you start correcting it in fsh or lightroom, you will not see any drop in sharpness, because the glass does not lose its high-quality qualities in the picture. Fishy is dissimilarity, not hackneyed, caricatures and creative shots, they need to be able to manage, not be afraid of bold decisions, try their hand at creativity. A lens for purposeful looking natures, if not for its price, I would recommend buying.

Advantages: Sharpness, workmanship.

Disadvantages: I will confirm the presence of chromatic aberrations at the edges, but not critical ... And one more thing - the lid does not hold well, often flies off, as a result of which the likelihood of scratching the glass increases ...

Comment: Great lens! At 15mm I will confirm that you will not always say that you shoot with Fish, but the coverage is impressive ... Especially those who have never even held this in their hands before. I use it together with 5D Mark III - great shots in the end on the street, it is funny and cool to shoot buildings and interiors, cars, landscapes ... and if you also use HDR - the result can be very pleasing!

Advantages: The best fish on Canon. In addition, a unique fisheye zoom. Build quality. Metal, dust and moisture protection.

Disadvantages: There is no better fish for Canon, so there is essentially nothing to choose from - there is old stuff and a shameful zenith, and there is this elka top fish. The drawbacks are not critical, but still: the lid and the hood are loose, they can easily fall off the mounts in the backpack. I would like a greater aperture, when you have all the glasses from 1.2 to 3, 4 is already somehow annoying. There are aberrations, but not critical.

Comment: The best fish on Canon. Do not compare with Zenitar and others. Convenient. On full frame it works like a super-wide 15mm - up to a round (circular) fish with a view of exactly 180 degrees at 8mm.Needed for: building creative compositions (which cannot be done with other glass), spectacular photographs of dances, shooting in a cramped room. At 15mm, it does not distort the central third of the frame, "barrel" only on the side thirds. I don't want to sell, the lens is excellent. Bokeh almost does not give, but he is not for that either.

Advantages: out of competition for creating circular panoramas it is revealed indoors or vice versa, in huge spaces in straight hands you can make masterpieces (though this is applicable to any lens) in Photoshop / lightroom using the appropriate lens profile can turn into a cool shirik

Disadvantages: there is only one real drawback - the front lens is not protected by anything except its own caution

Comment: surprisingly sharp, the viewing angle from habit blows your head, colorful and contrasting, you can even shoot good full-length portraits with caution: in the center it has no distortion, the problem is awesome for video, that this is not a staff, and you won't be able to shoot everything with distortion, either second camera or constantly change lenses

Advantages: Fisheye lens with variable focal length. Full frame - from circular to standard diagonal fisheye, on crop - from "semi-circular" to wide angle. One of the sharpest (if not the sharpest) fish, at all focal points and across the entire frame. If at the same zenith in the full frame the sharpness decreases in the corners, then in the Canon it is almost like in the center. Clean, contrasting and rich colors. Excellent backlight holding. Very precise focusing. Nice blur of the background. Durable, high build quality.

Disadvantages: The cover is not fastened completely securely, it is enough to slightly touch the locks to make it fall off - it is better to wear it in a case. Many people write about aberrations - but this is an organic feature of all fishies, they do not exist without aberrations, but here they are quite moderate.

Comment: Shooting with Sony NEX-5N. In principle, there is no better fish-eye for a crop. It replaces zenith, samyang and bearing, surpassing them all in all respects (except aperture ratio and macro photography). Once I had to go for a run, I threw this Canon and Sony SEL18-200 into my briefcase. Frankly, the canon emerged from that situation as the clear winner, without receiving the slightest damage.

Advantages: The Fish Ai effect on this lens is incredible. In this mode, it gives out all 180 degrees, the world is in the palm of your hand! Best for today that I have used. For a portraitist, this is the most, especially if you don’t like to bother with manual focusing., The holder is convenient, the equipment is quite sufficient for the master, the quality is as always on the level. Strange, but it turned out that it has no distortion. But then you get used to it. For nature filming, it was also perfect: landscape photography is simply fantastic.

Disadvantages: It is not thought out about fixing the hood lid, it is somehow frivolous when working with expensive photographic equipment.

Comment: Weight is not felt for such a serious unit, 540 grams is quite real. You need a good bag for safe storage, since the lens is not protected.