Full disclosure here: I’m not a fan of the fisheye look, especially the full circle fisheye look (if you don’t understand what a full-circle fisheye is, it gives you a circular image in the center of your rectangular picture, with black edges all around it). But I will say this is a sharp lens with a huge depth of field. And the images are incredibly panoramic when ‘defished’ in software, which is what I do with them mostly. The depth of field makes autofocusing almost unnecessary, and the image is very sharp in the center (not so much on the edges, especially after software defishing if that’s what you choose to do). There’s some chromatic aberration and edge vignetting to deal with in software also.

I guess you can tell I’m not overly enthusiastic. To me, circular fisheye lenses are the asparagus of photography. Some people have acquired the taste. I’d rather go hungry.

We get asked a lot (and even worse, not asked by people who don’t know) what the different focal length fisheyes look like on different cameras. Here’s the short summary:

• 4.5mm – is a circular image in the center of your picture on a crop frame camera. A very, very small circle on a full frame.
• 8mm – is a circular image in the center of your picture on a full frame camera. Nearly, but not completely fills a crop frame.
• 10mm – is the classic, corner to corner fisheye look on a crop frame camera. Doesn’t fill a full frame image.
• 15mm – is the classic, corner to corner fisheye look on a full frame camera. Slightly fisheye look on a crop frame.

The Fisheye Comparison Chart under Resources on the right-hand side of this page should give you an idea of what you’ll get with each type of camera.