Fisheye Lens

riseagainst

I was looking to purchase a fisheye lens and i don't know what to buy. I'm on a pretty small budget and i was wondering what would be a good choice. i'm shooting a canon 50d. Thanks!

craig_d

riseagainst wrote:

I was looking to purchase a fisheye lens and i don't know what to buy. I'm on a pretty small budget and i was wondering what would be a good choice. i'm shooting a canon 50d. Thanks!

The first question is what kind of fisheye you want. There are two basic types: (1) the circular fisheye, which fits its entire image circle inside the frame, so that you get a round image with a more or less 180 degree field of view, with black in the corners and along the short sides; (2) the diagonal fisheye, which fills the frame and so gives you a full 180 degrees of view only on the diagonals.

You also have to consider that you are using an APS-C camera, which makes a bigger difference with fisheye lenses than with ordinary lenses because the most dramatic distortions in a fisheye image are around the edges. With ordinary rectilinear lenses, it doesn't much matter to you whether the lens was designed for full-frame or not, but with a fisheye, you almost certainly want one designed for APS-C to preserve the full field of view. This means Canon's EF 15mm full-frame fisheye would not be the best choice.

Sigma makes several fisheye lenses, at least some of which are available for Canon mount, and some of them are specifically designed for APS-C. You might want to start by reading the specs and reviews at the following link to get a sense of which ones interest you. Note that Sigma designates APS-C lenses by "DC" in the model name.

http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showcat.php/cat/30

There are also some cheap Russian and Ukranian fisheye lenses, the names of which I don't recall offhand; I think bobatkins.com has reviews of them. I don't know whether they are full-frame or not, but my guess is that they are. Still, worth checking them out.

craig_d

To spare you a little time with the Sigma reviews, these two look like the most relevant.

A diagonal fisheye for APS-C, about $680 (Sigma 10mm f/2.8 EX DC Fisheye HSM):

http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/1148/cat/30

A circular fisheye for APS-C, about $900 (Sigma 4.5mm f/2.8 EX DC Circular Fisheye HSM):

http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/1149/cat/30

Both are available for Canon.

I also looked up one of the cheap Russian models. It's the Zenitar 16mm f/2.8 MC Fisheye. It's very inexpensive (less than $150) but it's manual-focus only and designed for full-frame, so probably not a good choice for you.

riseagainst

Thank You for taking the to write the long and informative response! I'm novice at photography and i'm still learning new stuff everyday so this really helped. I'll check out the links you provided. I want one that's decent but not to much dough aha