The Fisheye Thread

Andy · July 2, 2006

Fisheye Lenses are fun, and super wide. They offer up many creative possibilities!

1Ds Mark II, Canon 15mm Fisheye:

Contrary to popular belief, if you hold the camera straight, you *can* also get a level horizon and straight lines. No "de-fishing" on this photo. This on 1Ds Mark II, and Canon 15mm Fisheye:

So let's discuss Fisheye Lenses, and the creative possibilities they afford us as photographers :ear Share your experiences, and photos!

USAIR · July 2, 2006

No experience here but will be looking here for some tips

Fred

Stan · July 2, 2006

Hi Andy,

what is the effect like on a crop camera. I have often wondered. The 10-22mm is obviously similar at 10mm but is not fisheye. Do you still have a crop body to show an example, or is it as simple as croping the outside egde of the shot?

Cheers
Stan

Andy · July 2, 2006

Stan wrote:

Hi Andy,

what is the effect like on a crop camera. I have often wondered. The 10-22mm is obviously similar at 10mm but is not fisheye. Do you still have a crop body to show an example, or is it as simple as croping the outside egde of the shot?

Cheers
Stan

15mm on a crop body is practically rectilinear. You can still get the fish effect, if you tilt the lens.

http://www.pbase.com/image/28415517
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/ef_15_28

wxwax · July 2, 2006

Stan, here's the 15mm on a 1.3 crop camera.

These shots are cropped a bit, but not straightened.

Nikolai · July 2, 2006

My 2 cen.., err, pics
I was honored by our very own Michiel de Brieder to use his 8mm fisheye (Made in Belorussia, right, Michiel?) on our post-shootout trip a few times.

Here's a couple of shots I quickly PP-ed and uploaded just now:

01: Natural Bridges, Bluff, UT:

02: Double Arch, Arches NP, UT:

I didn't do any cropping, sorry, just a minor color touch-up.

I used my (1.6 crop) Canon 30D.

I remember Jack also tried it on his FF 5D, so he might come out with better versions of the same locations:-)

Anyway - it's a fun lens, and I'm planning on getting one, at least eventually...

Stan · July 2, 2006

Thanks Andy, I thought so...

Waxy, I remember the original post of this, no.3 is awesome

Nikolai 8mm is awesome.

The 10-22mm does this at 10mm

or the Fish shot of his kids which I love, great comedy.

I will post later but Smugmug is running slow this evening

Cheers
Stan

Nikolai · July 2, 2006

Stan,

Stan wrote:

Nikolai 8mm is awesome.

All thanks to Michiel, it's his lens and his kind Dutch heart

that let me use it

Stan wrote:

I will post later but Smugmug is running slow this evening
Stan

It sure does... That's why you need S*... errr, some 3d party uploader

Pezpix · July 2, 2006

One of my favorite quirky little lenses! Keeping it clean on the otherhand... Oy! And dont even get me started on the lens cap.

As for a thought on the possibilities with the 15mm fisheye. Well, I have been using it with my 1DMII so factor in that 1.3x crop and I still get an effective 20mm view (approx). Truly however, a full-frame sensor with the 15mm will be a fantastic and fun adventure, especially with dramatic foregrounds that bring the picture right to you.

Add in the sharpness (even around the edges) and the real lack of light falloff that you would get with the 16-35 or the 17-40 around those edges and boom! You've got a great advantage in wideangle goodness!

Personally, my wildflower photography, and seascape work is my favorite times to use the 15mm fisheye since rocks, waves and flowers really lead you into the picture! All in all, when used sparingly, and creatively, this lens is one that I recommend for every Canon user, even with the 1.6x crop!

Nikolai · July 2, 2006

Hey neighbour
Please tell me this picture was so not taken this year, was it?
I was told there is no poppies in the Reserver, so I didn't go..
Please tell me I didn't miss it :bash

PS.
You *do* have quite a glass collection

Pezpix · July 2, 2006

Nikolai wrote:

Please tell me this picture was so not taken this year, was it?
I was told there is no poppies in the Reserver, so I didn't go..
Please tell me I didn't miss it :bash

PS.
You *do* have quite a glass collection

Hey oh master sith of glass! If you want, I will lie and tell you that it wasnt from this year

. But yeah, actually it was. That shot was taken as I sat right next to the Guru, Mr. Lepp over at 195th street North of Lancaster this spring. The preserve and the Gorman hills were barren this spring, but the foothills just to the north had some wonderful displays. Of course, the lack of rain we recieved here in SoCal this winter really played a hand in most of that disappointment, but the Central coast was amazing this year (if you could be brave enough to hit the muddy dirt roads in Carrizo plain, avoid the eleventy-billion ticks, and all the poison oak)

As for the burgeoning lens collection, I would trade it all in for a nice digital back Hassleblad H2D-39 if only B&H would be nice to me

:photo

chrisjlee · July 2, 2006

Magnificient photos guys.

Andy: I'm really impressed by how you didn't manage to get that barrel distortion. Thanks for sharing that. I had no idea.

Now I must wait to shovel up money to get one.

ziggy53 · July 2, 2006

OK, so what do people recommend for a fisheye lens?
Are the Russian lenses really any competition for a manufacturer lens?
Zenitar 15mm, f2.8
http://www.rugift.com/photocameras/zenitar-fisheye-canon-eos.htm
Peleng 8mm, f3.5
http://www.rugift.com/photocameras/peleng_fisheye_lens_for_canon_eos.htm
Are there any lenses to stay away from? (Either quality or physical fit)
How about accessory lenses with the fisheye perspective?
Has anyone done a simulated fisheye with stitched images and software?

Thanks,

ziggy53

illuminati919 · July 3, 2006

Alot of action photographers use fisheye, some overuse them and it gets old very fast, mainly skatephotographers. I dont believe in fisheyes because they are the easy way out, I've seen people just stick their camera out and take the photo, whats the point of being a photographer if you dont even compose your image ?

Even though I dont like it in action photos I love fisheyes in architectural photos, the way it bends the photos is really cool and it definitely gives it a cool effect.

Marko

Pezpix · July 3, 2006

illuminati919 wrote:

Alot of action photographers use fisheye, some overuse them and it gets old very fast, mainly skatephotographers. I dont believe in fisheyes because they are the easy way out, I've seen people just stick their camera out and take the photo, whats the point of being a photographer if you dont even compose your image ?

Even though I dont like it in action photos I love fisheyes in architectural photos, the way it bends the photos is really cool and it definitely gives it a cool effect.

Marko

And of course, who can resist a funny animal photo with a fisheye lens

illuminati919 · July 4, 2006

Haha yeaaa, nothing like a horses head completely in the shot while only a foot from his face.

THE TOUCH · July 4, 2006

So does the 10-22 qualify as a fish-eye?

I love this lens!

10-22 @ 10mm

10-22 @ 17mm (or maybe it was the 17-85

)

Also works great in construction and real estate! 10-22 @ 10mm

10-22 @ 10mm

ziggy53 · July 4, 2006

THE TOUCH wrote:

So does the 10-22 qualify as a fish-eye? ...

Kevin

The Canon 10-22mm is an "Ultra-Wide" or "Super-Wide" lens, but it is "rectilinear" meaning that the field of curvature is well controlled. It does have some barrel distortion used at the widest angle of view, so it still needs to be used carefully or corrected in software.

http://www.photo.net/learn/fov/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectilinear

Ziggy53

Khaos · July 4, 2006

ziggy53 wrote:

Kevin

The Canon 10-22mm is an "Ultra-Wide" or "Super-Wide" lens, but it is "rectilinear" meaning that the field of curvature is well controlled. It does have some barrel distortion used at the widest angle of view, so it still needs to be used carefully or corrected in software.

http://www.photo.net/learn/fov/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectilinear

Ziggy53

I thought fisheyes had 180 degrees for angle of view?

Either way I want one bad. I'm thinking about selling my 85 1.8 to go towards one since it currently is my least used lens.

herion · July 4, 2006

Diagonal fisheye alternative for cropped cams

Khaos wrote:

I thought fisheyes had 180 degrees for angle of view?

I was never happy with a 15mm diagonal fish (Canon or Sigma) since it really didn't give the effect I wanted.

HOWEVER, I use a 8mm Sigma fisheye with a Kenko 1.4 DG Pro TC. This gives me the perfect effect that I'm looking for.

I'll post pix later.

THE TOUCH · July 4, 2006

Ahhh...I see, I see!

Thanks Ziggy!

ziggy53 wrote:

Kevin

The Canon 10-22mm is an "Ultra-Wide" or "Super-Wide" lens, but it is "rectilinear" meaning that the field of curvature is well controlled. It does have some barrel distortion used at the widest angle of view, so it still needs to be used carefully or corrected in software.

http://www.photo.net/learn/fov/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectilinear

Ziggy53

jkcashin · July 4, 2006

ziggy53 wrote:

OK, so what do people recommend for a fisheye lens?
Are the Russian lenses really any competition for a manufacturer lens?
Zenitar 15mm, f2.8
http://www.rugift.com/photocameras/zenitar-fisheye-canon-eos.htm
Peleng 8mm, f3.5
http://www.rugift.com/photocameras/peleng_fisheye_lens_for_canon_eos.htm
Are there any lenses to stay away from? (Either quality or physical fit)
How about accessory lenses with the fisheye perspective?
Has anyone done a simulated fisheye with stitched images and software?

Thanks,

ziggy53

Allow me to add a n00b question to yours... just ordered my 20d, but am looking at lenses already. With the 1.6 crop factor, what length lens will behave as a fish-eye? I would have thought it would have to be under 10mm, but looks like I am wrong.

Jamie

Nikolai · July 5, 2006

Jamie,

jkcashin wrote:

Allow me to add a n00b question to yours... just ordered my 20d, but am looking at lenses already. With the 1.6 crop factor, what length lens will behave as a fish-eye? I would have thought it would have to be under 10mm, but looks like I am wrong.

Jamie

To behave as a fish-eye the lens gotta be... a fish-eye lens...

While it's true that fish-eye lenses are wide, from this very thread you can see that there is 15mm fish-eye and 10mm non-fish-eye lense, for instance.
The small focal length alone does not make a lens a fish-eye one, it also has to be constructed in a certain way.
One thing a crop factor of the body does is that it trims the usual fish-eye circle, just as you can see in my two non-cropped pictures in the beginning of this thread. On a FF (full-frame) camera (e.g. 5D) you would get a complete circle.

HTH

ziggy53 · July 5, 2006

jkcashin wrote:

Allow me to add a n00b question to yours... just ordered my 20d, but am looking at lenses already. With the 1.6 crop factor, what length lens will behave as a fish-eye? I would have thought it would have to be under 10mm, but looks like I am wrong.

Jamie

Jamie,

A fisheye lens is a special effect lens, not corrected for curvilinear distortion. A "regular" wide-angle lens is normally designed to reduce the effects of curvilinear distortion, and it is called a "rectilinear" lens.

Our eyes and brain perceive the world without much curvilinear distortion, so we normally expect to see images that way. When we see curved lines in an image, it usually looks funny if we were expecting straight lines.

The effect is similar to looking at the reflection in a spherical mirror or Christmas tree ornament. (Not my image. Used for instructional only.)

Can you simulate the effect in software? I'm glad you asked.

Here is an image I created months ago. It's a 100% crop of a lens test at 200mm. It's from a Canon "L" lens, and I guarantee has almost no curvilinear distortion.

It does have rather strong, straight lines, so it's a pretty good candidate for the treatment.

Here's how it looks after processing:

It's soft in the middle, but that's because many pixels had to be interpolated, and I only started with a VGA resolution image. Using a normal image, full resolution, it would look authentically "fisheye".

ziggy53

jkcashin · July 5, 2006

Thanks Nicolai and ziggy53! As usual in photography, there's no hard-and-fast rule to the answer... so I especially appreciate the answers. Now, back to lurking for a while ;-)

jamie

Nikolai · July 5, 2006

While I concur...
..with what Ziggy said, I'd like to note that since the fish-eye lenses are *usually* wider and often provide almost 180 degrees FOV (Field Of View), a software can only simulate the real thing to a degree.

HTH

jwashburn · July 5, 2006

illuminati919 wrote:

Alot of action photographers use fisheye, some overuse them and it gets old very fast, mainly skatephotographers. I dont believe in fisheyes because they are the easy way out, I've seen people just stick their camera out and take the photo, whats the point of being a photographer if you dont even compose your image ?

Even though I dont like it in action photos I love fisheyes in architectural photos, the way it bends the photos is really cool and it definitely gives it a cool effect.

Marko

I agree with the overuse. I shoot lots of action stuff and I cant live without my fisheye, especially with skateboarding. I have to admit I have never tried the just point and shoot method, but I could see how it would work especially with digital photos. I just started shooting digital and I can even imagine wasting precious slides on just point-shoot and pray, but who knows. I have recently started shooting motocross and the shots in moto are almost all long (200mm+) shots with super low aperatures. I assume it is because you dont want to be 1 foot away from a 250 lb machine going 50 mph. I got the oppurtunity to shoot some pros the other day on a closed track so I could get kinda close. I love the look of the fish.

http://www.joeywashburn.com/gallery/1603981/1/77986275

http://www.joeywashburn.com/gallery/1603981/1/77986554

The scond one is my favorite

sser · December 9, 2006

Has anyone tried or know anyone who uses a fisheye extender.. ive seen them on ebay and such the ones you put on the end of a lens...

Red Bull · December 9, 2006

From what I've read they are crap. They make your photos lose quality since they are just cheap adapters. If you want a fisheye lens, I would suggest taking a loot at the Peleng 8mm fisheye. It's only about $200 and is much better quality than the cheap "extenders"

illuminati919 · December 9, 2006

Personally I dont like the Peleng, I have shot with it numerous times, the optics are horrible, gets bad flares and always seems out of focus and its a super pain to focus because of how wide it is. I hearde the nikon 10.5mm is one of the best fisheyes around, never shot with it but all my skater friends say its amazing. I'm looking into the Canon 15, not as wide but nothins better then Canon glass

.

Red Bull · December 9, 2006

All the photos I've seen from the Peleng are pretty decent. It's not a lens where I would expect it to be up to Canon standards, but a lens that's a good value for what you get. I would much rather pay only $200 for decent glass than $800 for super high end glass since it's a specialty lens that I wouldn't use a lot.

The Fisheye Thread

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