Conclusion

The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 8mm f/1.8 Fisheye Pro is a rather niche addition to Olympus' growing family of professional lenses, offering excellent build quality, performance and image quality, but costing a lot more than smaller, lighter alternatives from Panasonic and Samyang.

Image quality is excellent. Centre sharpness is very high throughout its focal length range, although the performance drops off a little at the edges, where you really need to stop down to at least f/4 to get acceptable results. Chromatic aberrations are pretty well controlled and vignetting is present but not a real issue. The only proviso to bear in mind from a design point of view is the inability to use traditional screw-on or behind the lens filters.

Holding the title of The World's Fastest Fisheye, this f/1.8 lens really comes into its own in indoor environments where the use of a tripod isn't possible (or indeed allowed). We did miss the push-pull manual focus ring with a marked distance scale, as featured on the other Olympus lenses, but the snappy autofocus almost makes up for its absence. Weather-proofing is a nice feature, but we're not sure how many photographers will actually benefit from it.

In summary, the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 8mm f/1.8 is a high-performing fisheye lens that delivers excellent image quality and a feature-set that other fisheyes can't match - only you can decide if it's really worth paying £799/$999 to have them...

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	3.5