Use of Fisheye Lens for Playful Images

Use of Fisheye Lens for Playful Images

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Use of Fisheye Lens for Playful Images

A high quality lens should deliver not only exceptional quality, but also effective correction of image distortion. The apparent barrel distortion that commonly occurs with wide-angle lenses requires even more advanced optical technologies to correct. However, this principle doesn’t apply to fisheye lenses, which produce exaggerated distortion to create one-of-a-kind 180° ultra wide-angle fisheye effect. Being the world’s first fisheye zoom lens* that offers both Circular and Diagonal fisheye effects, EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM is capable of creating an interesting circular effect like a crystal ball in addition to normal fisheye effect. Let’s try creating photos with a playful touch by using these special angles of view!

* As of 25 July 2011. When used with EOS Full-Frame DSLR cameras

Capture the Magnificence of Buildings

The 180° angle of view of a fisheye lens can include the entire street in the composition. Although the characteristics of the lens make it impossible to reproduce straight lines and regular geometrical shapes of the buildings, we can make the buildings look more magnificent by using the exaggerated distortion effect and shooting from a low angle.
EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM • 1/320s • f/11 • ISO 400
EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM • 1/400s • f/11 • ISO 400
The characteristics of a fisheye lens make the peripheral objects appear smaller. A low shooting angle can enhance the size and proportion between the top and bottom of the central object, resulting in a more prominent presence of the subject building.

An Exaggerated Horizon

The distortion effect of a fisheye lens is more apparent on the periphery. If we frame a shot by putting the horizon (or any horizontal line) on the image periphery, the ground will turn into a sphere as if we were living on a tiny earth!
EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM • 1/250s • f/11 • ISO 400
To create an effect of this kind, we should shoot down at the ground (with the lens pointing down but not moving your body down to the ground) so that the ground will take up a larger proportion in the frame for more significant spherical result.

Wide-Angle Shooting

Framing your shot with the horizon / horizontal line on the periphery will create a spherical effect. On the contrary, positioning the horizon / horizontal line on the center of the image will lessen the distortion effect for the lines (also with proper trimming). By doing this you can use the fisheye lens for normal wide-angle shooting.
If your shooting subject involves straight lines, such as the vertical lines of the buildings in the above photo, slight image distortion will occur. This can be fixed in post-editing:
On the left is the original photo. We can see there is apparent distortion for the lines of the buildings. The image on the right shows the final result after correcting the distortion.
By increasing the level of “Distortion” in post-editing, we can “straighten” the distorted lines. We then need a little cropping on the image to obtain a proper aspect ratio. Therefore, a drawback of this image treatment is loss of image resolution. Adjusting the “Distortion” is a common way to correct lens’ distortion in post-editing. Most post-editing softwares including Digital Photo Professional Ver. 3 or above have this function built in. Please Click Here for more information regarding this function.

Shooting from a Special Angle

Diverse effects can be created by shooting from different angles with a fisheye lens! For example, point your camera to the sky and the clouds in the image will form a spiral shape around the center.
EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM • 1/800s • f/16 • ISO 100
Leading line is a common technique in composition. With the addition of the distortion effect of a fisheye lens, more interesting, curvy leading lines can be created. Position the leading lines on the image periphery as the distortion effect in that areas is more significant.
Shooting at 8mm wide-end of EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM and angle up your camera, the entire 360? surrounding objects will all be contained in the composition, resulting in photo with a crystal ball effect.

EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM • 1/800s • f/8 • ISO 400
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