Conclusion
Pros
- Extremely small lens that is lightweight and easy to handle
- Generally decent build quality given the price with a nice feeling aperture ring and well damped focus ring
- Images are sharp across the frame stopped down
- Unique stereographic projection makes for a less severe fisheye look and wider horizontal and vertical field of view
- Good control of chromatic aberration
- Inexpensive
Cons
- Plastics on the lens hood are extremely prone to scratching and scuffing
- Quality control could be improved
- Only average in control of flare
- Very long minimum focus distance for a fisheye
The Rokinon 8mm f/2.8 fisheye for APS-C mirrorless cameras (available in Fuji X and Sony E mount) is a very unique lens. It is inexpensive, pretty good optically, versatile, small and is one of the few stereographic fisheyes in existence. The result is quite a good bargain. Fisheyes are not an everyday lens, but when used in the right circumstance, they can be really powerful. There’s just no way to achieve this sort of width any other way. Most fisheyes are rather expensive little buggers, but the Rokinon 8mm comes in at a very reasonable $329 and you get a lens that performs very well for the price and is sized right for mirrorless cameras.
Image Samples
Click on any image to enlarge
“A non-fisheye lens can be said to have a rectilinear projection. This keep lines straight throughout the image, but in wide-angle lenses, this results in the size of objects at the images edges being stretched larger than they are in real life. It also distorts circular objects into ovals.”
Don’t you mean “distorts spheric objects into ovals.” ?
Sincerely Niels K
No, I did not. Since both spherical and circular objects will project to a circle in 2D space, circular is the more appropriate and encompassing term.
Circle are projected into ovals if the tow planes (the circle and the camera sensor) are not parallel.
my two cents 😉
After using one of these for several months now, I’m always amazed at how little distortion there actually is until you get out near the edges. Keeping the camera as level as possible yields an image that is more like shooting with a super wide..especially with a little processing. This adds to the value…makes that $300+ seem like an even better investment. Of course, a little out of square and this falls apart, but nice to have the option.
Its a great little lens and a ton of fun on front of a small mirror-less camera