Canon 8-15 Fisheye - I'm impressed!

DuncanDisorderly

DuncanDisorderly

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Duncan
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I don't think I've seen other people posting images from this amazing lens.
Am I the only one on TP who has one?

I bought mine for a project photographing the Milky Way, but I've been using it far more than I originally expected.
And the results are fantastic!
These examples were all taken last weekend covering a local Folk Festival.

8mm produces a circular image with a 180 degree field of view.
It's very hard to keep my feet out the shot; I've stopped worrying about it :nuts:
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15mm covers the full image with just under 180 degrees corner to corner.
Providing the camera is fairly level, the distortion is usually easy on the eye.
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The resistance to flare is mightily impressive - pretty much negligible! :bonk:
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This image has been printed to A3 and could go far larger; it is a wonderfully sharp lens.
I scouted the venue a couple of hours before the doors opened and worked out where I wanted to stand to get a decent composition. I've shot this venue in previous years and it is a photographic nightmare, I'm very pleased with this one.
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Is it just me - or does anyone else own one of these little beauties? :D
 
The only down-side to using this lens is getting some very odd looks.

I was photographing some thatchers at work and realised everyone was laughing at me - although my composition had the pair of them and the scaffold / ladders / thatch I was only about four feet from them and the camera was pointing straight at the crotch of the thatcher on the scaffold - whoops.
Here's the image; you can see two of them starting to laugh :thinking:
i-njj9rPW-M.jpg


This next one was a tad awkward.
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The bloke rising up off the grass came straight over and aggressively asked why I was taking pictures of his children.
It took me a moment to work out what the heck he was on about; but I realised my camera had been pointing straight at his family.
I showed him the images and asked him which were his children, and he kinda went 'Oh...'; that and my Official Festival Photographer lanyard meant we parted on good terms; but the initial encounter and the attitude that went with it was not at all pleasant.
Gonna have to watch for this in the future.... :(
 
Looks good, might hire one for a bash - doubt I'll ever need it for any work jobs but looks fun
 
buckas said:
Looks good, might hire one for a bash - doubt I'll ever need it for any work jobs but looks fun
Click to expand...

The images really stand out from the festival gallery when they are mixed in with other photographers images; which was one of the reasons I wanted to try using this lens to cover the festival.
To see what I mean, have a look at the set from Sunday where my images are mixed in with the work from two local professional photographers.
http://www.priddyfolk.org/cpg/

It is definitely the most entertaining lens I own.
Finding compositions that work is fairly mind-bending and took me a while to get the hang of.
Group portraits are really fun; I ask them to stand close together, closer please, no much closer, almost touching heads. Usually gets lots of smiles and laughter - click - job done :D
 
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DuncanDisorderly said:
I don't think I've seen other people posting images from this amazing lens.
Am I the only one on TP who has one?.....
......Is it just me - or does anyone else own one of these little beauties? :D
Click to expand...

I had one for about 12 months and then sold it to "Philthejuggler". "Igadiz" also has (or had) one for a while IIRC.
I'm sure Phil posted some photos during the time he had it.

Bob
 
Yes - it's a great lens - but as you say can be very difficult to remember to keep your feet out of the shot... I've had some funny looks as well :)
 
DuncanDisorderly said:
This next one was a tad awkward.
i-5rcNcHh-M.jpg

The bloke rising up off the grass came straight over and aggressively asked why I was taking pictures of his children.
It took me a moment to work out what the heck he was on about; but I realised my camera had been pointing straight at his family.
I showed him the images and asked him which were his children, and he kinda went 'Oh...'; that and my Official Festival Photographer lanyard meant we parted on good terms; but the initial encounter and the attitude that went with it was not at all pleasant.
Gonna have to watch for this in the future.... :(
Click to expand...


I don't get people like this, really, I don't. They were at a Festival!! out in the open, not as if he and his family were in their living room and you were poking your lens through their curtains ffs!

I hope some of your parting words included "Get a grip mate, there's a good lad"? [pat on the shoulder to boot] :D

I never used a fish-eye, the results are interesting, but I do often wonder ... would an UWA not have gotten pretty much the same all in, just without the 'twist'?
 
Have to confess to being another fisheye lover, although mines an 8mm prime. For slightly longer lengths I use my 12 -24 Sigma (the fisheye's a Sigma too). Were I so misguided (! ;)) as to be a cannoneer, I would certainly be looking at the zoomy fisheye.

Feet in shot? Almost unavoidable while keeping a stable stance - in fact, I have problems keeping my gut out of shot!!! (And photography in the nude is NOT a good idea with a fisheye.)
 
Cagey75 said:
I don't get people like this, really, I don't. They were at a Festival!! out in the open, not as if he and his family were in their living room and you were poking your lens through their curtains ffs!

I hope some of your parting words included "Get a grip mate, there's a good lad"? [pat on the shoulder to boot] :D
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Indeed - but I didn't
Most years there is some sort of photography related trouble at the festival, and this was only a minor niggle. These problems usually end up in my lap to sort out and this was the first time I've actually been the photographer in question. If he'd been even a tad more threatening then I would have headed straight over to an organiser with a radio and got backup sent over to help diffuse the situation.
It's a family friendly festival and my worst nightmare would be a herd of photographers patrolling around the outside of the picnic area snapping the picnickers. It would (does) make the punters deeply uncomfortable.
 
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Not got used to LV yet - the D700's implementation was a little (IMO) clumsy but the D800's a lot better!

TBH, I've never shot nude but after all my weight loss over the past year or so, I'm guessing that if I can see my ---feet without a mirror, other bits might well "spring" into shot!!! Even shooting on a tripod, I find it pays to horizontally mount the centre column to keep the leg(s) out of shot. It wasn't a problem on Dx since that chops of a bit of the top and bottom but FF doesn't have that margin available.
 
Here's a landscape I took yesterday with this lens.
It's the shot I was looking to get from the visit, but I think I need to go back with a longer pole - this shot was from the end of my monopod hung over the edge of the cliff and it it was a little further out then the cliff below me would be part of the image.
I still quite like it though - it's very different to anything I've taken at this location in previous visits.
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^ Love that CA around the frame edge giving that picture an almost frontier of space feel!

Rick
 
Rajkay said:
^ Love that CA around the frame edge giving that picture an almost frontier of space feel!

Rick
Click to expand...

I haven't spotted any traditional CA cyan/magenta fringes; even when pixel peeping; so I don't think it's CA.
Perhaps it's a large dose of vignetting combined with some artefacts from weird optical paths though the glass.

However, I do agree with you - it does suit this sort of image :D
 
I did think it was bit weird for a lens of this class (and price!), but really didn't know enough about the subject to know what else it could be, so thanks! Feel the need to get my 10-22 aps-c lens out now :)

Rick
 
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