Canon has been pushing the boundaries of lens design recently, with some highly impressive optics coming to market, some never seen before. It seems the company is showing no signs of stopping, as a patent for an extremely wide full frame fisheye lens has just emerged.
Canon News uncovered the recent patent, which details a design for an 8mm f/4 fisheye lens with an angle of view somewhere around 180 degrees. This would not be the first such lens from the company. They already have the EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM lens. Nonetheless, that lens came out almost a decade ago, and in the meantime, Canon has made numerous optical advancements, and they have the advantage of the new RF mount. Of course, such a lens is a bit niche and would not be right for all situations, but that being said, fisheyes can be great for very unique perspectives or for situations in which one needs to be very close to the action and maintain a deep depth of field. It's important to remember that not every patent eventually makes it to a product on the market, but it is certainly exciting to see Canon producing interesting optics.
8mm should give you a circular view. I recently bought the old Canon FD 7.5m f5.6 fixed focus fisheye lens, and it does the job pretty well apart from it's age, a nice tool for circular images. I use it on the EOS R, and I guess that even if this new lens reaches the market my old one will have been much cheaper for my rare occasions of using it.
Anyway, it's great that Canon "rediscovers" old lenses and brings them to new light probably with modern lens design and coating.
“ They already have the EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM lens, a highly unique optic in that it is the only zoom fisheye lens on the market.”
Highly inaccurate reporting there Mr. Cooke! Nikon makes the AF-S FISHEYE NIKKOR 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED
I know research takes time but it saves face.
Good catch. Thanks for that!