Canon Fisheye EF 15mm 2.8
One day test of the Fisheye EF 15mm 2.8. A short take. At the moment the widest lens in my bag is a Canon EF 16-35 2.8L. I use this lens all the time. I mean ALL the time. For landscapes, interior photography, architecture, group shots, portraits and travel, you name it. While 16mm is very wide in my book on a full frame SLR I have often wondered about lenses such as Canon's EF 14mm 2.8L II or perhaps new and upcoming EF 8-15mm 4L. Yesterday I had a chance to play around with Canon's fisheye 15mm 2.8. I borrowed the lens from my friend and fellow shooter Christina Bombæk. Christina is a talented and very creative photographer. Check out her site here.
As a rule my lens tests are not scientific with crops and in depth analyses of corner sharpness etc. and please keep in mind that I only tried the lens out for a short period of time. I will however give you my two cents. First of all it is just downright fun to use. I can see myself getting used to the effect of the fisheye. While this is not a full 180 degree fisheye, which renders a circle with black borders on your frame, this lens still creates a significant distortion. The lens is not as sharp as Canon's L series lenses, nor does it have the same contrast and punch to the colours. The distortion can be fixed in post production. I used the full lens correction in Lightroom 3 for some of the shots, for others I manually adjusted the correction. Auto focus is the old buzzy kind, which Canon used a couple of decades ago. Not a big issue on this lens really.
So will I rush out to grab one of these. This is not a lens I really need to get the job done. Would if be fun, of course. I would like to see how Canon's new 8-15 perform and I wouldn't mind trying out Sigma's 15mm, which comes in at $609.00 versus $799.00 for the Canon.
Below are a few examples from my quick test. All with a Canon 5D Mark II.
Please follow the link to view 32 shots taken with the 15mm 2.8.
