Lens: Canon EF 15mm f2.8 – fisheye perspective

This was the widest EF lens at the launch of the EOS system in 1987 and it remained in production for 24 years so there a la lot around and they are reasonably priced. If you’re looking for a new perspective the EF 15mm f2.8 fisheye is a good place to start.

Compatibility

Like all Canon EF lenses, the 15mm f2.8 fisheye is completely compatible with all Canon EOS film and digital camera bodies. Although Canon made a fisheye lens for the FD-mount manual focus cameras, this lens has a different optical formula.

This full-frame lens works perfectly with Canon APS-C sensor digital bodies, however the 1.6x crop factor renders the field of view equivalent to a (distorted) 24mm lens, which is not very useful. Save the 15mm fisheye for your analogue film and full-frame digital bodies where you can enjoy the fisheye goodness in its entirety.

Canon have provided lens data for the EF 15mm f2.8 so Canon Digital Photo Professional raw editing software can make corrections for chromatic aberrations, distortion and peripheral illumination. With newer digital camera, these connections can be made in-camera.

Handling

The slide-on lens cap covers a big, beautiful front element that is protected from bumps by the fixed petal-shaped lens hood. The lens mount is metal, the body of the lens is plastic and it feels solid and well made. The lens itself is not much longer than a 50mm standard lens and handles easily.

Like most early EF lenses the 15mm fisheye uses an arc-form drive (AFD) motor for autofocusing, which is audible but works quickly. A window on the lens shows focusing distance with depth of field marks for f8 and f16. The manual focus ring has the typical AFD mechanical-gritty feel. Fisheye lenses have a huge depth of field so you’ll have no need to be twiddling the focussing ring, most likely you’ll be using f8 and hyperlocal-focussing or leaving it on AF and just letting the camera work it out.

Using the fisheye lens is as simple as using any other Canon lens. Getting good interesting compositions is the biggest challenge. Wide angle lenses require getting close to the subject; the fisheye lens requires getting really close. Like, up-close-and-personal close. Huge fun!

While fisheye lenses are noted for their characteristic spherical distortion, lines that run through the optical centre of the image remain straight. This can be used to minimise the fisheye look. Alternatively digital editing software is available to “de-fish” the image and convert it to rectilinear.

Results

For convenience I mounted the Canon EF 15mm f2.8 fisheye lens to a digital Canon EOS 5D original body and spent a day at Chatswood, Sydney Australia. Chatswood is a transport interchange and has a large modern shopping centre, plus old-style open streets, so there is a huge range of subject matter to choose from, and something happening at most times of the day.

All images were taken with Canon EOS 5D at 1600 ISO and the Canon EF 15mm f2.8 fisheye. Apertures used are in the comments. Raw editing was done in Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.10. Low light often requires shooting wide open and the images show the lens performs superbly.

Despite showing mostly black and white images, the lens renders colour with typical Canon quality.

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Conclusion

The Canon EF 15mm f2.8 fisheye lens is a unique image creating tool. Image quality is superb on digital and will be equally excellent on analog film. The lens is compatible with all Canon EOS film analog and digital cameras, which essentially doubles its value.

Making interesting compositions with a fisheye lens takes creativity and practice. To see what’s possible, take a look at Willem Jonkers fisheye street photography web site, and read the article about him at Petapixel.