Vivitar - Fisheye lens - 7 mm - f/3.5 - Canon EF Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)First of all, let's clarify that this lens is not made by Vivitar - it is rebranded and originally made by Samyang (as Samyang 8mm). It seems that the cosmetic design of the lens might be unique to Vivitar. You can find this lens also branded as Bower, Polar, Falcon, Rokinon, Digital Innovations. And of course, Samyang. The Vivitar version is the sexist-looking though. here is rokinon:
Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 Aspherical Fisheye Manual Focus Lens for Canon EOS 50D, 40D, 30D, 20D, 10D, Digital Rebel (300D), Rebel XT (350D), Rebel XTi (400D), Rebel XS (100D), Rebel XSi (450D) & Rebel T1i (500D) Digital SLR Cameras
You'll also notice that the other brands call this lens a different focal length - Samyang calls it 8mm for example. Just to be clear, these are all the same lens. Why the difference? Well, you probably don't even want to call the lens 7 or 8mm. If you compare it to other lenses, it will be closer to 10 or 12mm. The main issue is that this lens doesn't use the normal (equisolid) fisheye projection, but rather, a "stereographic" projection. What does this mean? It means that the "fisheye distortion" is not quite as pronounced at the sides of the image.
If you have a full-frame sensor, you can cut off the lens hood of this lens and have a "circular" fisheye similar to an 8mm lens on a 1.5 or 1.6 crop sensor. (yes this will void your warranty ;-)
Overall, the image quality of this lens is on par with lenses that cost twice as much, or more.
For some incredibly in-depth analysis of this lens, check the intrepid Michel Thoby's page:
[...]

Click Here to see more reviews about: Vivitar - Fisheye lens - 7 mm - f/3.5 - Canon EF

Vivitar 7mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens for Canon Features
This Vivitar 7mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens is suitable for both artistic and technical photography. Extreme-wide angle lenses are pleasingly distorted in a hemispherical projection, resulting in an image that looks like the eye of a fish.
The Vivitar 7mm f/3.5 fisheye lens is created for APS-C image sensor. It creates images with an expanded perspective, including images with a creatively deformed outlook and a sharp pan focus that extends throughout the entire frame. By offering 180 degree angle of view, this fisheye lens can be used to create amazing image expressions that cannot be seen with the human eye, such as exaggerated perspective and distortion. The minimum shooting distance and large depth of field gives new meaning to close-up shots.

180° diagonal angle of view
Multi-coated glass reduces flare and aberrations

Click here for more information about Vivitar - Fisheye lens - 7 mm - f/3.5 - Canon EF