Finding one of the best fisheye lenses will do you good if you’re trying to get enormous viewing angles for a project. Considered to be much wider than the standard width of wide-angle lenses, they’re a perfect option for any photographer looking to get a stunning ultra-wide-angle wraparound view from their shots.
A fascinating fact worth knowing is that fisheye lenses were originally invented for meteorologists to enable them to monitor the weather. Still, soon after, they became one of the favourite lens types for creative photographers.
In this post, we will highlight some important features of one of the best fisheye lenses for Canon, the Rokinon 12mm f/2.8 ultra-wide fisheye lens, and just so you know, Rokinon meant business when it called this lens an “ultra-wide” one as you’ll discover in the review that it beats and surpasses the hype.
A few things that characterize the lens as an exceptional ultra-wide are its maximum focal length of 12mm, a 180° diagonal view angle, an aperture of f/2.8, and much more.
Read Related More > Canon EOS Rebel T7 Review.
Contents
What is a Fisheye Lens?
Fisheye lenses may not exactly be a literal representation of the animal. Still, its optical properties are worth the dub, as the angle of view they draw into perspective is enormously unbelievable for a first-time user.
They are primarily characterized by their ability to have a distorted and distinctive worldview and find profound utility in video and still photography.
Typically, shooting with a wide angle provides you with a 180-degree view of the environment, and there are two main categories of it – Full frame and circular.
The circular one can capture a 180-degree all-round view, giving the central image a round look similar to looking into a crystal ball, with the rest of the frame black.
On the other hand, a full-frame type fields a different appearance as it can only capture the 180-degree angle in view across its diagonal. This effect isn’t as extreme as its counterpart, and the image area perfectly fits within the sensor’s ratio. In order words, black borders are not visible around the image produced.
Best Fisheye Lens for Canon (Top List)
Here we have picked some great fisheye lenses for canon. So, check and choose the best one for your need.
Rokinon 12mm f/2.8 Full-Frame Fisheye Lens :
Great for Photographing Fish Eyes
Rokinon Fisheye 8mm f/3.5 :
Best for manual operating mode
Canon EF Wide-Angle Zoom 8-15mm F/4.0 :
Best fisheye lens for skating photography/Filming/ VR
Altura Photo 8mm f/3.0 Wide Angle Aspherical Fisheye lens for Canon :
Great fisheye lens for ultra Wide image.
Rokinon Ultra Wide Fisheye 12mm F/2.8 :
Great value and easy to use
Canon rf 5.2mm f2.8 l dual fisheye 3d vr lens :
Best for still image.
We recommend the Rokinon and fisheye lens and discussed in depth.
Rokinon has more than a handful of fisheye lenses under its production wing. Despite the wide capture angle, one unique feature of all lenses is their great perspective. The Rokinon 12mm f2.8 is one fisheye lens you’d often see popping up whenever and wherever the term ‘fisheye lens’ is mentioned.
It is a full-frame manual focus lens, and even though it offers a focal length a bit narrower than many others in the brand, it is still more capable of capturing breathtaking ultra-wide angles.
The lens still runs on a manual focusing system, but it’s what permits its compactness that takes up very little space. Besides this, the lens’s maximum aperture is wider than what you find on other fisheye lenses, which means they are indispensable if you’re going to be shooting in low-light conditions and produce stunning bokeh effects.
Key specifications
- Compatible with full-frame cameras
- Fixed ultra wide angle 12mm focal length
- F/2.8 – f/22 aperture range
- Supports manual focusing
- 9″ minimum focusing distance
- 7 diaphragm blades
Rokinon 12mm f2.8 Full-Frame Lens Review
About system
The lens offered by Rokinon offers a user a 180-degree diagonal view when mounted on Canon full-frame cameras with an ability to offer incredible colour rendering and sharpness.
The lens is specifically designed for mirrorless cameras and won’t work on DSLR types, and as is sold in several kinds of mounts, including Sony E-mount, Canon EF mount, Fuji X-mount, and Samsung NX mount.
One thing bound to change across these systems is inevitably the apparent focal length due to each sensor’s different crop factors. On the Samsung NX mount, the lens will assume a 35mm equivalent of the focal length of 18mm, while the EF mount with a crop factor of 1.6x has an equivalent of 19.2mm.
The micro 4/3rds have a crop factor of 2x, giving the lens an equivalent 24mm angle of view on a full-frame sensor.
Body design and ergonomics
This little lens is beautifully designed and fields compactness at a miniature 2.33″ long. It has a diameter of 72.5mm and weighs only 1.14 pounds. The design of the lens is particularly attractive with a moderately dense feel, with a body typically composed of a mix of engineered plastics and metals with a handsome finish.
The aperture ring rotates nicely and sports well-defined clicks each half-step. However, the lens has a de-clicked version specifically sold for cinema works and has a maximum aperture of f/2.2, slightly narrower than the click version. The lens is also typically manual, and the focus and aperture are manually controlled.
It has a perfect focus ring, smooth and beautifully damped, and hard stops at the infinity and macro end. It has a ribbed focus, similar to what is found on Reiss products. A thin red aluminum ring also brings a special aesthetic flare similar to the Canon L series, with this one seeming a little bit classier.
The ring has a white dot with the sole purpose of showing the selected aperture and also functions as the distance marker for the lens’s focal ring.
Half of the inch of the lens’s barrel protrudes out significantly to take in the front element that is a bit large. The shape hoods included also clicks quite nicely into place, enabling the protection and shading of the element.
Speaking of this front element which appears bulbous, the lens supports traditional filters on the 67mm thread. The ability of filter threads to be used on the lens is a big advantage over its predecessor, making shooting long exposures easier than the previous model.
Other lens features are nano casting, which minimizes flare along with 2 aspherical elements to decrease chromatic aberrations and distortion. The lens features 12 elements in 8 group design and sports a metal bayonet mount.
Autofocus and focus performance
The first information worth divulging about this lens’s autofocus system is that it is a manual focus, which isn’t to say you shouldn’t expect much, but that since this system works on a fisheye lens, there isn’t much to worry about.
You may hate a maul focus, especially when it is programmed into a focal lens of about 85mm, but it’s a different ball game on a fisheye lens like this one.
The lens also has an excellent depth of field, as all you have to do is to set your focus on the lens’s third mark and leave it to express its prodigy. Expect all the shots taken to be in focus, with the only probable exception being that you draw close about a few inches to your subject, which will then cause you to adjust.
Conclusively speaking, the manual focus on the Rokinon 24mm f/2.8 is one of the most accurate types of autofocus obtainable in a fisheye lens because you’ll have little or no issue struggling to or dabbling into an incorrect focus.
Image quality
The image quality of this lens largely expresses itself in terms of the sharpness, which could have turned out awkward if it was below what we get from it. Fortunately, with the Rokinon 12mm f2.8, you get a razor-sharp crystal clear image output, which is even more spectacular when shooting RAW files.
However, there seems to be a persistent confusion on issues of focal length when related to fisheye lenses, as they all cover 180 degrees. Nonetheless, for the Rokinon 12mm f2.8, the case is a unique one, as the lens tends to fill up the frame better than its vertically and horizontally counterparts.
What Are The Special Features Included?
All fisheye lenses have one thing in common – An ultra-wide angle view. The Rokinon 12mm f2.8 brings some additional flavor to this incredible optical feat, which is highlighted below:
- The colors and flaring are superb
- 7 blade aperture renders unique highlights of 14 stars
- UMC and NCS coatings
Internal and external video capture
The Rokinon 12mm f2.8 Fisheye lens also finds its place in video shooting. With its perfect 12mm focal length and aperture wide open, directors and cinematographers can exploit this advantage as getting more area into the shot becomes very easy.
The Rokinon 12mm f2.8 has, on many occasions, been likened to a cine lens due to the similarity in being able to create the kind of disorientation needed for video production. Due to the size of the focal length, they are unfortunately more suited for external video capture than internal recording.
Exposure controlling
The Rokinon 12mm f2.8 fisheye lens also has flawless exposure control, and with its wide aperture, a user is offered more spaces to explore. What you get for shooting even at the widest aperture is a consistently sharp center image, except that the corners lack as much detail as the center.
However, when the aperture is slowed down, you notice a quick improvement in the resolution. We don’t consider this too bad for a lens with such aperture and focal length. We feel it’s a fair deal.
Still image capturing
Besides the ease of losing details due to the quality of the lens’s edges, Rokinon’s special attention to lens geometry makes it one of the top players in the precision obtained from shooting still images with the lens.
The lens tones are also well balanced, with a minimally noticeable hue. The Ronikon 12mm f2.8 isn’t a bad performer when capturing still images.
Purpose of use in photography
One of the most popular uses of a fisheye lens like this is for intense sports like parkour or skateboarding. With this lens, you can create the “big air” that gives the sports its feel while at the same time putting shots into context.
When shooting with a fisheye lens, you also get a panoramic view of the athlete, which is still locked down to the skateboard. Other secondary uses of fisheye lenses are simulated security footage and cinematography.
Pros
- Impressive center sharpness
- Immersive view
- Impeccable resolution
Cons
- Blurry corner
- Manual focusing
Key Specifications of Fisheye lens
| Key specifications | Standing |
| Coverage | Full frame |
| Diaphragm blades | 7 |
| Lens hood | Removable petal shaped |
| Angle of view | Full-frame 180° |
| Coating system | Nano Crystal Coating system |
| Weight | 1.14 pounds |
| Lens type | Fisheye |
What is considered a budget fisheye lens?
A fisheye lens is a convex wide angle lens, and even though sometimes, they are regarded as not being the same as wide angle, to play safe with terms, they fall under the same category, just a much wider focal lens.
More distinctively is their ability to make neat objects appear disproportionately large while making objects farther away appear smaller.
They come in very handy in creative photography and are also an indispensable creative optical tool in the hands of videographers. Their focal lengths, like a typical wide-angle lens, fall below 24mm, with an extra ability to create profound visual distortion and a unique sense of immersion.
The word fisheye was borrowed from the Tokina trademark but is currently applied generically for lenses capable of producing images with deep barrel distortion and wide-angle views.
Why is my fisheye lens blurry?
While a fisheye lens can stretch out your view, having the lens too close or too distant from the chip will cause your image to be blurred. The distance of the lens to a chip is based on the nearness or farness of what is being photographed.
How much is a fisheye lens?
The price of a fisheye varies based on the brand, focal length ranges, a huge chunk of the deciding factor, and other perks to its build.
Regardless of the kind of fisheye, you’re looking at getting, expect to find a modestly performing one beginning at $90 with higher ones clustered around $180 – $300, which is inclusive of the tax fee for it.
Top Questions (FAQs)
What kind of shot are fisheye lenses suited for?
Fisheye lenses are made to capture ultra-wide angles, typically 180 degrees. They are popular in shooting sports events, landscapes, and artistic photography.
Are fisheye lenses concave?
Fisheye lenses are designed to evade the normal mechanism of creating rectilinear images, as their nature requires them to make characteristic non-rectilinear convex images. They do this with the help of a mapping angle, which is also called an equisolid angle.
How does a fisheye differ from a wide-angle lens?
It is important to note that while wide angle and fisheye lenses are similar, they are not interchangeable. Wide-angle lenses are more versatile and assume a more walkaround nature. They are also the right lens for photographers looking to obtain a wide field of view while at the same time preserving minimal distortion.
Final Words
While wide-angle lenses may serve your optical needs satisfactorily, exploring a wider field of view may be a sudden pressing adventure you want to embark on as a photographer. It also prevents you from ending up with a wack fisheye lens, and we carefully selected one of the top players in that lens line, Rokinon 12mm f2.8.
Laced with incredible features, of which most aim to expand your view as much as possible, with only a handful of distortion issues or chromatic aberration to deal with, the lens is a wide-angle marvel. We recommend you give it a try.