New lens testing Canon 8-15mm f4 Fisheye

[John Baker]

I recently managed to snap my favourite 15mm fisheye lens off my camera body, don’t ask. As the lens was very old I decided to replace it with a 8-15mm fisheye zoom. The big differences is the old lens was f2.8 and had the nice feature of when twisted fully it was set at infinity, the zoom of course zooms, only 14 & 15mm give the full rectangular image, while 9-13 give a strange vignette corner look, however, 8mm give the full round image. I was very keen to see what the effect was of being able to get the whole sky in a single image plus try to get some interesting land features in the frame.

Due to work pressures last night was the first time I have been able to get out, of course the big “blue moon” was a bit of an issue, however, it did bathe the countryside in an almost daylight glow. Heading up from Teigmouth on to Dartmoor, I started at Kennick Reservoir which is near Bovey Tracey, this is a cracking location, combining good access and some interesting features, a walkway extends out from the dam gives a great effect. The shore has a couple of boats to add interest – things were starting to look good. All images shot at around 30” or 25” ISO was 3,200 or 1,600 and the aperture was set at either 5.6 or 6.3 – there was far too much light so I was trying to maximise quality.

From there we moved to the Bowerman’s Nose, this is an interesting feature, from the road it looks like a simple stack of rocks, from above it looks like an old man with a cap on. Arrival coincided with a good pass by the ISS at around 2:00 – the attached image is a composite of 5 images, shot at 30” showing the passage of the station through the image – I think it has worked well. Finally we moved over to Hound Tor which is a great location, lots of interesting formation.

Trying to get good astro wide field shots with a full moon is never going to be easy, I am really pleased with the results. I am very pleased with the coma which has been controlled very well. The images come out of the camera with a black surround, there is an element of purple fringing at the very edge, I have removed this and turned the outside white.

I am really pleased with the results, the round image is  a bit different & a lot of fun, I look forward to giving the lens a good testing with the Perseids over the next couple of weeks – fingers crossed for a couple of clear skies. I am very new at this and I would like to hear what you think of the round images and hearing any comments – many thanks in advance

[xtreemchaos]

great set of images John, real nice detail. thanks for sharing. charl.

[RichM63]

Pretty sharp images.

I'm the novice around here, but for me if an image is supposed to be circular then I want to see the whole balanced circle. Here all the pics seem to be decanted over to the right, in some instances cutting off part of the image.

Might be forum software causing this, but I think that they would look better 'center framed', with equal white, top/bottom, left/right. (its a collimation thing;) )

Rich

[John Baker]

Pretty sharp images.

I'm the novice around here, but for me if an image is supposed to be circular then I want to see the whole balanced circle. Here all the pics seem to be decanted over to the right, in some instances cutting off part of the image.

Might be forum software causing this, but I think that they would look better 'center framed', with equal white, top/bottom, left/right. (its a collimation thing;) )

Rich

HI Rich, as I said these were shot last night, there is a super blue moon about, so they are all slightly skewed to basically keep the moon out the shot. My preferred shooting would be when there was far less ambient light, which would allow me to be more precise in framing. My main concern was that I had purchased a second-hand lens & I wanted to check that it worked, the focus was consistent across the frame, I wanted to evaluate how it dealt with small point of light (coma) in all the corners, how the performance was at various apertures, etc, etc – the aim of the testing is to be confident that when conditions are better, the lens will perform  -  I would have loved to have shot in better conditions, but juggling a job & having to go to work with clear skies is never easy and we have to use the opportunities when they arise  

[grimble61]

Brilliant

I too find it hard juggling our hobbies and work, I have been on the dreaded night shift and took my star adventure and 6d 24 105l out on the new forest , working on the A31 . but didn't bother as moon bright and huge.

I work in traffic management so once closure is on plenty of time to play...

[John Baker]

Brilliant

I too find it hard juggling our hobbies and work, I have been on the dreaded night shift and took my star adventure and 6d 24 105l out on the new forest , working on the A31 . but didn't bother as moon bright and huge.

I work in traffic management so once closure is on plenty of time to play...

Hopefully you will get a combination of clear sky, lack of moon & an opportunity for some time off

[grimble61]

Yes I'm hoping to get out on DartMoor as have a weekoff towards end of the month (new moon) I might try bower man's nose.