Something smells fishy… and it could be because Canon has designed a fisheye zoom lens for the Canon EOS R family of full-frame mirrorless cameras.
The manufacturer has been hard at work on the Canon RF 8-15mm f/4 Fisheye – which is a mirrorless version of one of the best fisheye lenses (opens in new tab), the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM (opens in new tab) for DSLRs.
While there are plenty of creative options among the best Canon RF lenses (opens in new tab) – from the bokeh-tastic Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L DS (opens in new tab) lens to the Lensbaby Composer (opens in new tab) – something that's notably absent from the current lineup is a fisheye lens.
So we're grateful that Canon is revisiting its classic EF optic, which boasts a 180-degree angle of view that enables you to create circular fisheye images at 8mm (giving you that distinctive "porthole effect", as shown in the image above) as well as shots with full-frame coverage (which fill the entire frame) when the lens is zoomed right in.
Canon usually makes a tweaks to something, or adds an extra bell or whistle when it produces RF equivalents of EF lenses, so it will be interesting to see if it does anything dramatic here or if it's a straight-up translation of the existing DSLR optic.
Here are some of the details from the optical formula, unearthed from the Japanese patent registration that was spotted by Canon News (opens in new tab):
| Focal length | 8.10 | 11.97 | 15.07 |
|---|---|---|---|
| F number | 4.10 | 4.10 | 4.10 |
| Half angle of view | 91.51 | 90.00 | 90.32 |
| Image height | 11.50 | 17.00 | 21.50 |
| Lens total length | 111.33 | 107.33 | 108.91 |
| BF | 13.13 | 24.44 | 31.63 |
Canon is showing no signs of slowing down with its madcap maturation of the RF mount lineup. Already we've heard that there's an Canon RF 35mm f/1.2 (opens in new tab), a Canon RF 35mm f/1.2 Defocus Smoothing (opens in new tab) version, a Canon RF 300mm f/2.8 (opens in new tab) and another RF super-telephoto coming in 2021.
We're bowled over by how much effort the manufacturer is putting into the RF mount. Now, if it would just give us a 1:1 macro lens…
Read more:
Fisheye lens camera tips: get great shots with a fisheye lens for Canon and more (opens in new tab)
Photo ideas: Capture powerful sports portraits with a fisheye lens (opens in new tab)
The best fisheye lenses (opens in new tab)
