A lens for anything and everything

With its bright maximum aperture, the Olympus M. Zuiko 8mm f/1.8 Fisheye Pro lens has the distinction of being the world's fastest fisheye as of its May, 2015 release. Its dust-, splash-, and freeze-proof design lets you use it outdoors in almost any kind of weather, and you can stay out with it after dark and get some amazing night sky photos or street scenes. Photos taken with a fisheye lens nearly always stand out in a crowd. The curved perspective you get can add a sense of whimsy or drama to any scene.

A fisheye is great for immersive landscapes, architecture and building interiors, intense close-ups of sports or action, and powerful portraits, along with nearly any other application you can think of. The lens' small minimum focus distance lets you get incredibly close to your subject while its ultra-wide angle lets you capture the surrounding context. The large depth of field of a curvilinear lens means both foreground and background will be in focus at any aperture setting.

Play with perspectives for dynamic, one-of-a-kind photos

Fisheye lenses are known for producing distorted images with curved edges, which can be a great advantage if you want to create compelling photos. If you photograph a subject straight-on at close range, you'll end up with some wacky proportions (think of those popular greeting card dog photos where a large nose is the most prominent feature). That's great fun if it's what you're going for, but try placing your subject a little further back, or shooting them from above or below, and you're likely to get some really interesting results.

If you shoot a landscape with the horizon in the center of the frame, you won't see as much distortion, but when you play with the horizon in an expansive landscape, placing it above or below the center of the frame, you'll get a real sense of the earth's curvature. Since the fisheye lens offers a 180-degree field of view along its diagonal, it captures most of what's in front of it. This means you can use software to create virtual panoramas by stitching together just a couple of shots.