Like tilt, shift, and macro lenses, fisheye lenses also fall in the specialist lens category. There’s often a super fun aspect to using fisheye lenses, especially to get your images immediately noticed. Not everyone’s a fan of the exaggerated distortion, but you can’t deny the visual impact these lenses have. Canon last released a fish eye zoom lens in 2010. I’m stumped as to why they still haven’t announced one as yet for the RF mount.
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Fisheye Lenses Engage Users And Viewers
Firstly, there’s the constant dilemma when using a fisheye lens of any kind. Do you embrace the distortion wholeheartedly? Or do you work around it and try to minimize it while taking advantage of the extreme field of view? For me, I’ve often tried doing both when using such a lens. It’s not like you’d be pressed for time when slapping one of these on your camera for a photoshoot. You’d probably be taking it out for a personal project more than anything else. If one doesn’t work, try the other to see what looks more eye-catching to you.
Find a good copy of such a lens and it’ll give you years of pleasurable photography. If you’re lucky enough to get a lens profile, you can even reduce the distortion when required. Fisheye lenses always challenge you to look for frames where you visually amplify the surroundings in a unique way.
The Good Old Canon 8-15mm f4
For a tiny lens, the Canon 8-15mm f4 fisheye actually was great fun to use. And it produced some extremely interesting photos during our review, where we stated:
“The look and versatility that the Canon 8-15mm F4 L gives me on full frame or APS-C sensors is amazing. I haven’t had this much fun with a lens since testing Olympus’s 12mm f2. The Canon 8-15mm f4 L isn’t just sharp, but it focuses quickly and accurately. Additionally, it’s small and super portable plus renders some wonderful colors. Indeed it is worth every penny.”
We affectionately named it “Megamouth” due to the Megamouth Shark’s mouth POV kind of photo it produces when you leave the lens hood on.
But the most fascinating bit about this lens isn’t its zoom capabilities. It was the first ever fisheye lens to provide both circular fisheye (at 8mm) and full-frame fisheye (at 15mm) images. Beyond being just a zoom fisheye lens, you could produce two very differently creative kinds of images with it. It was sharp throughout the frame and gave decent bokeh when focused closely. It’s an all-round performer, however this lens is a bit long in the tooth now. It was released nearly a decade and a half ago, in 2010. Canon doesn’t yet have a non-VR fisheye lens in its RF lens roadmap, but a new report suggests one could be added soon.
The Possibility
It’s possible that the upcoming lens could just be an RF mount 8-15mm f4 lens. But Canon has surprised us with some really exclusive and rare kinds of lenses in their RF series. We just might be in for a surprise from them. Could it perhaps have a wider aperture at 8mm, much like the Nikon AF-S 8-15mm f3.5-4.5? Or could they extend the zoom range a bit wider? It would be really crazy if they would have the full-frame fisheye extended to 8mm. The new lens is said to boast an “all-new optical design,” so we could just be in for a treat when Canon announces it.
More Brands Need To Capitalize On This
As I pen this piece, I realize that this is not just a gap in Canon’s lens list. Nikon, Sony, and even Fujifilm don’t have a fisheye mirrorless mount lens in their lineup for photographers. Nor do I see any in their upcoming lens roadmaps. Meanwhile, 3rd party brands like AstrHori, TTArtisan, Samyang, and more have various focal length fish eye options for you to choose from. A lot of them might be manual focus lenses only though. But it does beg the question of why the leading camera manufacturers haven’t yet introduced such lenses.
Bring Back Quirky Fun Into Photography
Digital, especially mirrorless cameras and lenses have become all too clinical in nature. Most are infinitely sharp, almost zero character, and without much individuality, if at all. Fisheye lenses are one category of lenses that help you put the fun back into your work. And also give your images an immediately unique look, to often seen subjects and scenes. I guess you could say they’re entertaining to use and to showcase the results of.
It’s really not a race per se. But I’m keen to see which of the four major brands actually announces a mirrorless fisheye lens first. Zoom capabilities or not, it’ll give us something different to get excited about. And if one of them brings out a fisheye, you can be sure the others will follow suit soon after. For now, it could be Canon who’d pip the others to the post, based on what we’re hearing.