Circular images

I’ve been a long time fan of the Canon 15mm fisheye!

I love to get as close and personal with my subjects as my 6 inch acrylic Hugyfot dome will allow – at the calculated cost of a thorough dome repolish once or twice a year.

When I recently upgraded to the 5D mkIV (from mkII) I splurged and got a Canon 8-15 mm fisheye as well that would fit perfectly in my 4 inch glass minidome – thus allowing me to get even closer. The old 15 mm couldn’t really focus close enough in the 4 inch dome to make any difference distance vs magnification wise; The 40 mm difference in minimum focus distance makes a world of a difference! (8-15 mm : 160 mm / 15 mm : 200 mm) 

Another fun feature of my new glass is that the 8-15 can produce quite unique circular images when is zoomed out at 8 mm. Given the right subject the circular images can produce pretty stunning effects but it’s also the camera world equivalent of using auto-tune in music productions: use it too much and it quickly gets tiring!

Hence I’m not the biggest fan of the circular pictures from the Canon 8-15mm but in this case I think the port hole on Tien Hsing at Abu Galawa created a perfect opportunity to zoom all the way out to 8 mm.

The ‘off camera strobe’ effect was achieved by stretching my left strobe arm to the next porthole while using the right one to illuminate the edge 🙂

It was somewhat of a spontaneous shot. Had I had more dives on the wreck that day I would tried placing a diver inside and also waited for the glass fish to congregate and form a more coherent school!

 

f/11 1/30 8,00mm ISO800