Canon (and Canon fit) fisheye lenses?

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Set_Nights

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I see that Canon has just discontinued its 14mm fisheye prime which leaves the only Canon fisheye lens as the 8-15mm fisheye zoom. Is this not a bit odd :suspect:? Surely a prime is more desirable and they have no other prime fisheyes as alternatives. It also had f/2.8 instead of the f/4 of the zoom. Was the 14mm a dud lens? Are any of the 3rd party lenses good contenders to these fisheyes?

Edit: What is a diagonal fisheye lens :suspect:? I gather the ones marked "Circular" give the circular images but what are diagonal ones?
 
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I have just bought the Samyang 14mm F2.8, it's manual focus but a steal at £300 new. Google it, the lens gets excellent reviews for quality, apparently it's distortion is quite bad but there is a plug in avaliable from PT Lens to correct this, once i can escape the kids for a while i will get out and play with it. Initial tests shows it can be tricky to focus without live view, there are no barrel markings for guides so you have to play around and work on hyperfocal focusing. I have just bought a split image focus screen for my 5D MK2 so hopefully i can go all retro with it and use it like the manual focus cameras of old.
 
Set_Nights said:
I see that Canon has just discontinued its 14mm fisheye prime which leaves the only Canon fisheye lens as the 8-15mm fisheye zoom. Is this not a bit odd :suspect:? Surely a prime is more desirable and they have no other prime fisheyes as alternatives. It also had f/2.8 instead of the f/4 of the zoom. Was the 14mm a dud lens? Are any of the 3rd party lenses good contenders to these fisheyes?
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Supposedly it wasn't as good as the Sigma 15mm.
IMO the fisheye thing is a bit overdone, thing of the past now, perhaps Canon felt this too and it might have been reflected in sales figures.
There's probably good enough UWAs available now that the fisheye is a bit redundant.

Set_Nights said:
Edit: What is a diagonal fisheye lens :suspect:? I gather the ones marked "Circular" give the circular images but what are diagonal ones?
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Diagonal fisheyes create an image that covers the sensor. Pretty sure that image is still a circle but it's a big enough circle to give you a full image on the sensor rather than having the black space a "circular" fisheye will give.
Not sure if there's a difference in angle of view between a 15mm circular and a 15mm diagonal lens.
 
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Diagonal fisheyes have the 180 degree view corner to corner, circular fisheyes as you know have the 180 degree view in a circle in the middle of the frame, so part of your frame will be black.

I notice that the OP is using a 450D, so a cropped sensor, for this reason the 8-15mm fisheye zoom would be a better bet, as the 15mm prime was optimised for a full frame sensor, so would not give the full 180 degree field of view on a cropped sensor camera.
 
Craikeybaby said:
Diagonal fisheyes have the 180 degree view corner to corner, circular fisheyes as you know have the 180 degree view in a circle in the middle of the frame, so part of your frame will be black.

I notice that the OP is using a 450D, so a cropped sensor, for this reason the 8-15mm fisheye zoom would be a better bet, as the 15mm prime was optimised for a full frame sensor, so would not give the full 180 degree field of view on a cropped sensor camera.
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Oh, I didn't think of this. What sort of FOV should I expect from the zoom and the prime then?
 
So after having a quick look around I understand I would actually be better with a zoom as I would want a lens that still has the rectangular view on full frame but still has the fisheye distortion on a crop... asking too much :p?!

Suggestions? Would the Canon 8-15mm, Tokina 10-17mm and Sigma 10mm fill this criteria? Any comparisons/pro vs.cons of these lenses :)?
 
Pretty much all of those 3 would work. It depends on how deep your pockets are, the Canon one is likely to be best, but will be pricey. I know the Tokina 10-17 has got a good reputation in in the action sports world. I've not heard much about the Sigma,but a quick Google shows that it will only have 167 degree FOF on the Canon version.
 
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