22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
I'm very happy with this
I got mine about a month ago and am just back from 10 days in Italy, where I used this extensively.
Sharp, good flare control, lots of fun. The previous reviewer says something about the AF being slow-- which, while true, is only half the story. You're almost always going to be focusing at or near infinity, so it's actually very rare to have to wait. Because...
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
optics excellent, AF speed very slow, not internal focus
Optical quality of this fish eye is very good. Flare control is excellent. However, AF speed is very slow. Takes 2+ seconds to move from closet distant to infinity. THe slowest AF speed lens among my other 14canon lenses. Also, during AF, the AF ring moves. I would like to be internal focus or at least the AF ring doesn't move. They didn't design a clutch to...
This review is from: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Electronics)
I got mine about a month ago and am just back from 10 days in Italy, where I used this extensively.
Sharp, good flare control, lots of fun. The previous reviewer says something about the AF being slow-- which, while true, is only half the story. You're almost always going to be focusing at or near infinity, so it's actually very rare to have to wait. Because this lens has such wide depth of field, I actually usually keep it on manual focus and leave it near infinity.
Actually, the biggest challenge with this lens is composition-- it can be surprisingly hard to find a scene with interesting things in all directions. That said, this lens is *excellent* for inside buildings and crowded city streets. Be aware that outdoors, finding the correct exposure can be difficult for a number of reasons. I did significantly better in M (manual) mode than my camera was doing in A (aperture) mode. (reasons for difficulty include the dark corners in the frame which mess up the camera's metering in some modes, and the probability that the sun will be in the frame and/or there will be both very light and very dark areas in the frame)
This lens is excellent for making spherical panoramas, and for realllllly wide angle shots (I'm de-fishing a lot of my pictures with software).
(I use this lens with a Canon 10D)
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This review is from: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Electronics)
Optical quality of this fish eye is very good. Flare control is excellent. However, AF speed is very slow. Takes 2+ seconds to move from closet distant to infinity. THe slowest AF speed lens among my other 14canon lenses. Also, during AF, the AF ring moves. I would like to be internal focus or at least the AF ring doesn't move. They didn't design a clutch to disengage the AF ring.
Pros: optical quality
Flare control
Cons: AF speed
AF ring moves during AF
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This review is from: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Electronics)
This Sigma lens is like a working piece of art. The build quality is high, the images are bright and sharp with excellent color saturation. I use mine to shoot full-screen 360 by 180 panoramas and the results are breathtaking! The best part is that this lens costs 1/3 to 1/4 of what the Canon 8mm lens costs. It's an awesome deal, no matter what way you look at it. The Sigma 8mm is definitely a professional grade lens.
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This review is from: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Electronics)
I also bought this lens to use with my XTi (400d) on my 360 panorama rig. Its fantastic for not only that purpose, but lots of creative work as well. It is a great addition to my lens collection and I know a few pros using it for pano work as well.
Enjoy!
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This review is from: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Electronics)
Good quality but on my Canon 5D, the circular image is pretty small. I was hoping it would be snug top-to-bottom to maximize pixel count. the lens may have been made for a 1.3 or 1.6 crop factor DSLR. That said, it's a HUGE improvement from my Nikon FC-E8 on a 995.
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This review is from: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Electronics)
Disclaimer: I only have a second hand 8mm/f4, without DG. Use it on 5D.
Pro:
1. Fun factor. There is nothing like it on a full frame such as 5D. This lens rules!
2. Light weight, compact, extremely smooth MF ring! The lens cap is of great design and quality, smooth, secure, and firm, period!
3. Surprisingly low color fringe and flair when light source is in or around the frame.
4. Very short close focus distance.
Neutral:
No HSM, AF can get lost - quite understandable though, for a lens THIS WIDE.
Con:
So so sharpness over all. Very good around F8 - F10. But not too bad wide open either, unlike the Sigma 20/f1.8 and 24/1.8 I have - these two primes are awful wide open at F1.8, but immediately get better stop down (probably a market trick to lure buyers away from Canon's more conservative F2.8 primes).
Bottom line:
This is fun unlike anything else. Full frame at 8mm + 180 degree view angle - sweeeet! I heard the newer f3.5 DG is far better in IQ department. But my fisheye is for fun really, the distortion and the covering all/missing none effect, so pxiel level sharpness is not the most important thing for me here. Besides, I got my F4 copy for $450, what a deal! Just love it! Just be careful with the front element since it can focus so close that it could have touched the nearest object without you noticing...
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This review is from: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Electronics)
I own an excellent selection Canon "L" lenses. But I was ready to try to fisheye. After extensive research, I decided to give the Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye a try. I'm glad I did. This lens feels good, it's small (compared to my "L" lenses), it focuses fast and quiet. The photos it takes are outstanding. I have even stated using the Fisheye-Hemi Photoshop plug-in to manipulate the images and "straighten" them out a bit. I recommend this lens!
-- Canon Digital EOS 40D
Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM
Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye
Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM
Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
Canon EF 1.4X II Extender
Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG APO Macro
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This review is from: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Electronics)
Very fun lens! Good color, sharp, great distortion. I have a Canon Rebel XTi and with the 1.6x crop i needed something with a lot of distortion. The vignetting can be pretty annoying because you have to edit every photo but it's no big deal. This is a good lens and I normally dislike Sigma.
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This review is from: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Electronics)
This lens is just wicked fun. It's small and light enough that you can just keep it in your bag to pull out any time.
It seems to make skies just pop even more than a circular polarizer does on a standard lens. Very few lenses will give you a cool picture just by pointing it up at the sky. This one will.
For framing shots, just a few steps back and you can get grand vistas. Get right on top of something and it looks like the whole world is a fishbowl around your subject.
With a 180 degree view, the hardest part about using this lens is keeping yourself out of the picture. Toes, elbows, and shadows all end up finding their way into your shot. The kids who are used to standing next to me if I'm trying to get a scenery shot are now in the shot.
There are just a few things that keep me from giving it 5 stars.
First the instructions say that you should turn off the auto focus to use manual focus. I like lenses that allow the full time manual focus.
It did require a little autofocus adjustment on my camera to get the best results. If your camera body does not support the autofocus microadjustment, you may not get everything you can out of the lens. It wasn't really bad before adjustment, just not as good as it can be.
Autofocus is fairly noisy compared to other Sigmas I've used, but this is a small nitpick.
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I have had this lens for some time and find it to be quite a bit of fun. It is a quirky world view giving you 180 angle of view and full circle image on full frame sensors (Your feet will be in many photos!). It is super close-focusing (you can nearly touch the subject with the front element!), and VERY sharp. Of course there is a lot of distortion (it is supposed to be there!) and you must edit all images. I would love to find a Photoshop action to automate this process as it does discourage my use of it somewhat. The lens itself is QUITE small, but solidly built as are most Sigma "EX" lenses. I often throw this lens into the bag on any outing as it can provide some creative outlet not possible with other lenses, and get me to think outside the box. My only niggle with the lens (and if I could I would rate it 4.5) is that is not internal focusing and I am always surprised to feel the front element spinning when focusing. The lens is TINY so a bit of bulk for an IF design would not hurt its usability much. Highly recommended.
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