List Price: $799.95
Sale Price: $639.95
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This is a great lens but also a niche lens. The construction on this lens is first rate. It is a lot like the Panasonic 7-14mm f/4.0 Micro Four Thirds Lens for Panasonic Digital SLR Cameras. The lens is extremely small and light for a fisheye lens. Panasonic claims it is the smallest in the world.
This lens is really good for an incredibly wide field of view and for the neat distorted look that gives the lens it name-fish eye.
There are 3 types of wide angle lenses:
Panasonic Ultra Wide Angle Rectilinear 7-14mm114 deg
Panasonic Diagonal Fisheye 8mm -180 deg
Circular Fisheye 180 deg
The Rectilinear lens while still having some barrel distortion, basically tries to remove it as much as possible to portray the image in a square or true to life fashion. However, by removing the distortion, the field of view is decreased. As listed above the Panasonic 7mm lens gives 114 deg field of view.
The 8mm `diagonal' fisheye give a 180 deg field of view despite being 1mm longer. It does this by allowing for massive barrel distortion. Basically, the only straight lines that will be straight pass through the center of the lens. The `diagonal' fisheye utilizes the entire rectangle of the frame. Whereas, the `circular' fisheye has a circle picture with the corners being black from being completely underexposed. This Panasonic 8mm is a `diagonal' fisheye which I personally prefer.
The reason this is a niche lens is that while the effect is cool, it will start to get old very quickly if used over and over again. It would be nice for shooting weddings but only for 2 or 3 photos. The same thing would go for birthday parties or sporting events.
For video the same thing goes. You could use it for a few segments in a clip but if you tried to shoot a whole video, even 3 min video, people would become fatigued and bored by it very quickly.
So, while, this lens has fantastic construction and great optics and would be a good quiver in many a toolkit, it should not be one of the first lenses you buy. Given the choice between this or the 7-14mm, the 7-14mm is going to be the better choice most of the time. If you are looking for a fisheye to expand your capabilities and you want the smallest with great optics this is the lens for you.
Pros
1) Great construction -Plastic but sturdy
2) Incredibly small and light (< 6 oz !)
3) Great optics
Cons
1) Only 7 bladed aperture instead of 9 -Not a big deal because an 8mm fisheye will have almost nothing out of focus. Still for this price 9 blades would be better.
2) Niche lens
3) Panasonic wasted time and money on this when they could have made 25mm f/1.4 or the even more needed the 300mm f/2.8
Update 24 Oct 2010
I've been shooting this fisheye extensively for the past week on a trip to Egypt. I carried a G1 and GH1 and the two lenses that stayed on my camera were the 14-140. and the 8mm. This is a great travel lens. There is no doubt about it. When touring around there is always a need for a super wide lens. The cool thing with a fisheye is that you get 180 deg. Yes you get distortion but as you can see on my photos sometimes that is good. The other thing to note is that the distortion can be fixed in post. While you do lose some of the photo when you do this you don't lose as much as if you were shooting a rectilinear lens. So for an update on this I would make the following recommendations concerning this or the 7-14mm.
If you are a working professional or semi-pro then you will most likely need both. However, if you can only have one then the 7-14mm would be first followed by the 8mm.
If you are a hobbyist then I would recommend the 8mm first. You can fix the distortion in post. It is ~.5 stops faster and it is incredibly useful for all sorts of travel and everyday photography.
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