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The Belomo/Peleng 8mm is made in the former Soviet republic of Belarus between Russia and Poland. It is a circular fisheye lens for full-frame cameras such as the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. It creates a circular image that falls entirely within the camera's frame (with the top very slightly cut off by the edge of the frame on my copy), and that image shows a 180-degree hemispherical field of view. On an APS-C camera such as the Canon 7D, 50D, or any of the Rebels, the circle is larger than the sensor, so the image will almost fill the frame, with small black areas in the corners. With either type of sensor, the image shows the dramatic, curving distortion that fisheye lenses are famous (and infamous) for.
The main thing to understand, in this modern age of highly automated, computerized cameras and lenses, is that in many ways this lens is a throwback to the 1950s. (Insert your favorite joke about Soviet industry here.) It has no electrical circuitry whatsoever. When you mount this lens on a camera, the camera's brain does not even know it is there, and cannot control the lens in any way. Not only is focus fully manual, but aperture must be set manually as well, using a control ring on the lens. Aperture will be displayed in the viewfinder as "0", and recorded that way in image EXIF data.
There are three control rings on the lens body. The rearmost (closest to the camera body) is the focus ring. The other two control aperture. The frontmost ring lets you select apertures starting with f/3.5 and then from f/4 to f/16 in whole-stop increments (at least, it has markings and detents at the whole stops, and I haven't tried leaving it halfway between two detents). The middle ring is the aperture lock; it switches between wide-open aperture (in the "UNLOCK" position) and whatever aperture is selected on the aperture ring.
To shoot, your camera will need to be in full manual mode. Having selected an f/stop on the front ring, you can leave the aperture lock open while framing and focusing, then lock the aperture with the middle ring. Then adjust the shutter time and/or ISO level until the camera's meter indicates correct exposure.
Image quality is generally good, with (not surprisingly) some chromatic aberrations toward the edge of the circle. The image is sharp in the center; toward the edges it gets a bit softer, but not too bad. Contrast is decent but not great. The worst problem is flare, which will always be quite noticeable when bright lights or the sun are in the frame -which can be hard to avoid with a 180-degree field of view.
The Peleng's minimum focus distance is about 8". The Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye, which costs more than twice as much, can focus down to 5.3" according to Sigma's published specs, but as I have not used that lens I can't comment on it.
The Peleng is solidly built of anodized black metal and the control rings move comfortably. Unfortunately, the lens cap is held on only by friction and falls off easily unless you really press it on firmly. Since the front element protrudes from the lens body (as it must to take in such a wide field of view), the unreliable lens cap is annoying.
I have heard of some people buying the Canon or Nikon versions of this lens and receiving an M42-mount lens along with an adapter to convert M42 to Canon or Nikon. Mine, however, appears to have a permanently-attached Canon-compatible mount made of black plastic (similar to Canon's plastic mounts on some of their cheaper lenses). The mount fits my 5D Mark II, but slides on more easily than Canon's lenses do; the fit is not quite loose, but it isn't as tight as other EF-mount lenses. When fully mounted, it is possible to rotate the lens slightly. This probably isn't an issue for general use since there are no electrical connections between the lens and the camera, but you probably shouldn't take your camera out in the rain with this lens on it.
I recommend this lens for those who want an 8mm fisheye at a budget price and aren't afraid of doing everything manually. If you want a more automated circular fisheye lens (or a diagonal fisheye designed for APS-C), you'll have to pay substantially more for the Sigma I mentioned above.
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