A long time ago in a thread far, far away, this conversation began:

Quote Originally Posted by Tannin
Canon's fisheye zoom is a sad joke of a thing. What were they thinking?
Quote Originally Posted by William W
Why, specifically?
Quote Originally Posted by Tannin
That's maybe a bit far off-topic for this thread, William, though I'd be happy to discuss it elsewhere. Suffice to say that the design is brain-dead and if you gave me one I wouldn't find room in my bag for it.
Hence this new thread devoted to the Canon 8-15/4 fisheye zoom.

On full-frame, its "zoom" range is 1mm. Yes, 1mm - from 14mm to 15mm. You might as well have a cheaper, lighter prime instead. It also acts as a circular fisheye if you set it to 8mm, which you can count as a bonus if you like. (I wouldn't.) Between 8mm and 14mm it is very badly vignetted and unusable.

On APS-H, it has a usable focal length range of 12-15mm, with the 8-12mm range not usable.

Only on APS-C does it become a practical, useful lens, with an effective range of 10-15mm.

It should never have been given the red L Series ring as it only works (almost) properly on APS-C - and on APS-C you'd obviously prefer the Tokina 10-17, which is:

  • fully usable through the entire 10-17mm focal length range without the need to crop out vignetting;
  • barely more than one third of the price;
  • not much over half the weight.


You can also use the Tokina on APS-H with a slight reduction in focal length range to around 12-17mm (the Canon is 12-15mm on the same format).

On full frame, neither product is a lot of use; the Tokina has a range of 14.5-17mm, the Canon 14-15mm). In either case, you might as well have a prime instead. Canon and Sigma both make fisheye primes, which I know little about, doubtless there are some others around also. Strikes me that the Tokina 10-17 is one of the best reasons for still keeping an APS-C camera in your kit. As for the Canon 8-15, probably only its mother could love it. Kudos to Canon for trying something different, What a shame they didn't try for different and useful.

</rant>