It was my husband’s 40th birthday a couple of weeks ago. He’s a typical Seattle man-child and I love him dearly despite of (or maybe because of) this. I wanted to make sure his 40th bday present was the best ever…….and it was.
Yup, he’s going to spend the day with Tony Hawk in August. This is a big deal because my husband is an AMAZING skateboarder. He grew up watching the birdman and the rest of the Bones Brigade troop every weekend before heading out with his own adolescent troop of skaters, trying every trick they saw in the videos and skating until sunset. He still skates every weekend, although now his troop consists of other 30 and 40-something die-hard skaters, and my 10-year old who can hold his own against the old folk.
So what in God’s name does this have to do with the Canon 8-15mm fisheye lens you ask? Well dear readers, skateboarder + birthday + video producer spouse= skate video! I spent a day at Jefferson skatepark with Euge shooting on my 7D and primarily used the Canon 8-15 mm fisheye. The 8-15 mm zoom has a limiter switch for APS-C cameras (cropped sensor like the 7D or 60D). The lens begins to vignette at a focal length of approx. 10mm on APS-C bodies, so the limiter helps avoid this. It gives you a choice of Manual or Auto focus, gives off great light, and captures an enormous field of view. I liked the fact that it gave off a smoother, less extreme “fisheye” look than a lot of the cheaper lens add-ons you can purchase, but again, this is a $1400 lens (approx), so it should! Of course the difference in the “fisheye” look changes dramatically depending on how close you are to the subject. I’m filming a skateboard hurling towards me, so I can’t exactly get 20mm away from that. There’s no image stabilization, but it didn’t seem to affect the image. Of course I switched up using a tripod, rig, and skateboard dolly, so it was always stable anyways. I absolutely loved using this lens to shoot skateboarding. It will become a mainstay lens for shooting action sports videos for sure! For a more in-depth review check out Camera Lab’s review of the 8-15mm fisheye.
Here’s the video of my old guy still holding his own – most of the DSLR close-up footage was shot with the 8-15mm fisheye.
