fisheye for canon

[wdw_monster]

I have a canon t2i and I'm looking for a good affordable fisheye lens. I'm a beginner with the camera but i really love that dramatic fisheye look. hows the rokinon 8mm? its under 300 but is it any good? I know since I have a canon most fisheye lens will cut off some of the image, and i really don't want that to happen.

 

[HPS3]

I have the Opteka ( same as the Rokinon) and love it. I doesnt cut off any image.


St. Louis Cathedral: A New Perspective by Harry Shields, on Flickr

 

[HPS3]

WDW Monster, you can't go wrong with the Rokinon fisheye. You will get addicted to it. Here's another one.

Storyland(City Park,NOLA) by Harry Shields, on Flickr

 

[PhotographyDR]

I would check this blog out for some info on lens in the parks. He is personally responsible for 2 of my lenses being purchased (well not really but I did trust his judgement and like to tease). But some good info non the less. He is also shooting with a "crop" sensor body so his shots will cut off some of the images. This is inherent to the smaller image sensor and not because it is a Cannon. Nikon, Sony, Olympus have the same issue. Some lenses can compensate for that so I would not worry about it too much. Like I said. Tom does shoot with a crop sensor so you should be able to get a good judgement from his shots, what yours should look like from a cropping point of view.

Don't know why my link is not working but Google "Disney Tourist Blog" and look at the site. The lens info is in the camera lens review section. Sorry but the DIS Boards is not playing nice.

Lens Review

 

[HPS3]

If I'm not mistaken, Tom shoots with the Rokinon 8mm Fisheye on his D7000. I've shot with this lens on my D5100 and now use it on my Nex 5n and have never had an image cut or not cover the sensor. You can look at YouTube and see the Rokinon on tons of T2i's for video and I've never seen any with black borders. Look at the Photo Sharing Fisheye thread, there are lots of us using this Fisheye lens. It's rebranded under many names but all are made by Samyang.

 

[wdw_monster]

wow thanx guys, so it sounds like a pretty good lens. Dsiney tourist blog is one of the reasons why I want a fisheye, their pics are so amazing!!

 

[photo_chick]

I have and love the Samyang 8mm fisheye. (I've got the Rokinon branded one and shoot on a Canon 50D). It has outstanding sharpness, color reproduction and contrast. I too got the lens after seeing what it could do on this board.

It's designed for crop bodies so you get a real fisheye effect on a crop body, not like the Canon fisheye that's designed for 35mm/FF format where you just get an UWA effect because you only get the center of the image. If you put this lens on a FF camera (some brands you can) you will get the circle fisheye with black around it.

But here's the catch with this lens... it's all manual (exposure and focus). You have to work for that image so make sure you're good with that. And on the Canon version there is no focus confirm or useful TTL metering information. I use my hand held meter or take a few shots and go off the histogram to adjust my exposure. But don't let that scare you off... it's not difficult to learn to use it well and it's the most fun you'll have with an under $300 lens.

 

[C&B Young]

Another vote for the Rokinon/Samyang. The manual focusing isn't nearly as big an issue as we'd feared with it - just set the focus ring to 2-3 feet (not infinity) and you'll find that everything is usually in focus. It's the best bang-for-the-buck lens in our bag!

 

[boBQuincy]

Canons work well in Av or P with manual lenses. Even though the aperture is reported as f/0 the metering system works as intended. A quick check shows that as the aperture is changed by 1 stop the shutter speed changes by the same amount. I used this method with my MC Zenitar 16mm fisheye lens.

Focusing is as others have noted, on a bright day set it to 3' and just about everything will be within the depth of field.

 

[rdunative]

Canon 15mm fisheye on a full frame sensor

Love my fisheye!