Seeing in Fisheye.

[RustBeltRaw]

I'm in the middle of a ten-day Sigma 10mm f2.8 fisheye rental, and I'm struggling. For some reason, I haven't composed a shot I really like. Mainly rented it for a big blacklight concert this Friday, where it has a very good chance of shining. But so far, I just can't seem to get the hang of the bloody thing.

So, fisheye users (hi, Kathy!), how do you do it? What the tricks that pull good images out of a deliberately distorted lens. I think I'm expecting a lot of myself in rather short order, since I've only driven a fisheye lens five or six times, but I don't "see" in fisheye the way I can with many of my rectilinear lenses. If I was Joe Gall, a freaking god-like local music photographer who usually strolls around with nothing but a battered 1D and a fisheye, I'd be there, but it's a tougher road than I expected. What are your tricks?

[inkista]

So, fisheye users (hi, Kathy!),

(waves)

how do you do it? What the tricks that pull good images out of a deliberately distorted lens. I think I'm expecting a lot of myself in rather short order, since I've only driven a fisheye lens five or six times, but I don't "see" in fisheye the way I can with many of my rectilinear lenses. ...

Yeah, it takes a while, and I don't actually "see" in it the way I do with my rectilinear lenses, I've just learned to recognize situations where its freakiness can be put to good use. The main problem with trying to do the rectilinear thing is that if you put something in the corner of the frame, you get hugely odd amounts of distortion. And if you put it in the center (particularly for landscape shooting), it shrinks.

So for me:

Look for circular things


5DMkII + Sigma 8mm circular fisheye.

Part of the confusion with a fisheye is the straight-becomes curved things. Circles kinda stay circles. BTW, note that this shot illustrates the other main hazard of shooting with a fisheye--check that you've kept your feet and/or hands out of the shot. (The Sigma 8mm circular has a 180-degree FoV, so I have indeed managed to capture both my shoes and my hat in a single shot).


Look up.

The super-wide field of view gives you a very expansive upwards glance.


XT + Sigma 8mm f/3.5 fisheye

Bonus if you look up and find something circular.


Canon XT + Sigma 8mm

Get close. Then get closer.

Aka: embrace the weird.

It's like they write on mirrors: "objects may be closer than they appear". You do have to be careful of protecting the front element of a fisheye lens, because it'll look like something's a few feet away when it's really only millimeters away, but conversely, you can shoot from angles a rectilinear could never encompass. You want a wide view? Weirdly, try getting closer to a foreground object of interest.


Canon XT + Sigma 8mm f/3.5 fisheye.

The foreground object will be massively distorted, so if you like funhouse mirrors, this is how you do portraits--right up someone's nostril--not from 5' back.


Horizon placement is key.
If you're going to do landscape photography, the closer the horizon is to the center of the frame, the less distortion will appear, and the closer you'll look to a wide-angle rectilinear. [BTW, I was probably only a foot away from the front of this rock].


G3+Rokinon 7.5mm diagonal

The closer the horizon is to the edge of the frame, the more off-kilter things will look. As with any contrast--don't be timid. Make it as strong as you can (aka embrace the weird II).




Lastly, jam into small spaces, don't go looking for vast expanses.

The thing with fisheyes is that what normally translates to a vast expanse with drama may become a very very boring crammed-to-the-horizon shot when you train a fisheye on it. Sometimes the drama is found in the smaller spaces. The traditional way to mess this way is to stuff your camera into a large appliance of some kind: dishwasher, refrigerator, washer/dryer, oven etc. I keep forgetting to do that. But I did put one in a flat of water, once:


XT. Sigma 8mm.

And here's me in the Point Loma lighthouse looking up and finding something circular:



Very confined space. My shoulders were brushing the walls, and it was maybe about five feet across. Try car interiors, you'll go nuts.

To see a better photographer do this the other way 'round (i.e., looking down instead of looking up), I'd recommend this photo of Samuel R. Delaney by Kyle Cassidy. Kyle will squeeze a crowd into a bathroom and take a shot with his fisheye from overhead.

Fisheyes are great for turning small spaces into vistas.

[chauncey]

Kathy, that is a great educational series of images.

[inkista]

Thanks. I still think of myself as a learner with fisheyes, because I've mostly owned and used them to shoot equirectangular [360x180 spherical] panos, and my first fisheye lens was the Sigma 8mm circular fisheye--which is much more extreme than most "regular" (diagonal) fisheyes both on distortion and on FoV coverage, so I never tended to use it much as a fisheye to grab a single shot. Throw in the fact that it was designed as a circular for full frame, and I was shooting on crop, and it just saw that much less use as a non-pano lens.

When I moved to micro 4/3 and got the Samyang/Rokinon 7.5 fisheye, however, that all changed. The 7.5 is essentially the mft equivalent of a 15mm "diagonal" fisheye for full-frame. Suddenly, I had corners/edges in my fisheye shots. Throw in the fact that I have no ultrawide lens, and I got better at using the fisheye as my ultrawide substitute and defishing. I'm only just starting to grok its ways as something other than a means to a pano.


G3+Rokinon 7.5; no de-fishing.

But every now and then the geek in me busts out and I can't help jonesing for a 360-degree virtual lens rather than a mere 130 or 180 degree physical one.



And then there's the fun of remapping in nutso ways:



But that's a different thread.

[FrankMi]

This is such a succinct explanation of how Fisheye lenses work and where they can be effectively used that I've made notes on every point presented here for future use. Although I don't posses a fisheye lens, these comments help me to better understand where I can more effectively use my 11mm wide angle lens.

Thank you Lex for bringing this subject to the forefront and you Kathy for the knowledgeable response.

[Bobobird]

Very interesting topic. Did not have much interest in this seeing how I cannot even get a landscape right. That said, was gifted a lensbaby thingy, all manual and played with it a while. Interesting views so thought of investing a bit more time into studying this subject before getting a proper lens.

Thanks for the topic and the quick and easy tuts.

One question is about focus - some say just press the shutter, some say focus as usual. Which?

[Manfred M]

Here are a few images I shot with a f/3.5 8mm Samyang fisheye while in New York City a few years ago:

[inkista]

One question is about focus - some say just press the shutter, some say focus as usual. Which?

Depends on what your working distance and aperture are. You do have tremendous amounts of depth of field with a fisheye. If you're at f/8 and you're shooting normal subject distances, just set the focus distance to infinity (or wherever liveview+magnification tells you is infinity--my Sigma is notorious for that mark being past infinity), tape down the ring and bang away. If you use a DoF calculator, at f/8 my Sigma 8mm (on full frame) basically has everything from 0.81 feet to infinity in focus; my Rokinon 7.5 from 1.34 feet to infinity in focus.

If, however, you want to do the "get close" thing or shoot wide open, you CAN still misfocus. Note the flower shot I did--the Sigma 8mm is stopped down to f/8 for that shot, too. But focus was NOT at infinity, as the ranunculus was probably 3cm or less away from the front element. It's in focus--the background is not. With a fisheye you may often be working well within that 1 foot-or-so limit.

So, just me, but I say focus as usual. I've shot indoor panos with my Sigma 8mm only to have to reshoot because of focus issues.

Manfred--that's a great fisheye, too, also at a very nice price. Had the Samyang 8mm or Sigma 10mm existed when I started shooting panos, I'd have plumped for one of them instead, and I might have learned this whole diagonal fisheye thing a bit faster. [Not to mention not feeling like an idiot 6 months after buying the Sigma 8mm when I realized you need to take the collar off.] There are times I'm tempted by the Canon 8-15L (it's a circular at 8, diagonal at 15), but the cost and f/4 keeps me from considering it seriously.

[oldgreygary]

You could also try going through your back catalogue of images and applying the Distort>Spherize filter(Photoshop Elements). Use the 'Marquee' tool to select a circular section of the image that you want to apply the filter to.It re-creates a 'fish-eye' look and gives you a 'feel' for what works and does not work. Here's an example of this.

[IMG][/IMG]


Cheers for now
Gary

[RustBeltRaw]

I'm glad to hear that learning fisheyes doesn't happen overnight. The Sigma 10mm f2.8 might find a home in my kit if I can source a used one at a decent price. As it stands, my most expensive lens was $550, and it doesn't seem to make much sense to spend more than that on a specialty lens. On the other hand, a 10-day rental is $82, so buying outright is starting to look more sensible. Especially if I need to have it for a while to make my way up the learning curve.

That said, I know they can make some incredible shots, so I'm really, really tempted. There's a local guy called Joe Gall, who in addition to being my favorite local pro, seems to walk around with nothing but a battered 1D and a 15mm fish most of the time. Cranks out stunners all day with it.



I'm going to re-read your brief several times, Kathy. Thanks for taking the time to write it. Mods, may I humbly suggest a sticky?

[inkista]

Lex, if the Sigma's too spendy, I highly recommend looking at the RokiBowYang (as Cicala terms the many names of Samyang) 8mm fisheye. It's less than half the price (around $225-$250). It is also weirdly known as the 7mm Vivitar and 6.5 Opteka, iirc. It's also a crop-body diagonal, and has an interesting difference: it maps stereographically rather than equisolid (translation: slightly less fishy and more natural-looking distortion). It's manual focus/aperture, but as you may have discovered, focusing is less critical with a fisheye than a normal lens. And optically, it's better than my Sigma 8. Manfred's examples are a great look at what that lens can do.

The flare control isn't as good as my RokiBowYang 7.5 (completely different design for mirrorless--the NEX/Fuji X 8mm design is similar the mft 7.5 version), but that may be the only criticism I've ever heard about it.

And yeah, that's a fantastic shot--foreground interest plays a big part with fisheyes. Think of it like an extreme plussed ultrawide.

There's also the fact that with digital post-processing, you do have some control over the amount of distortion/mapping. Complete defishing to rectilinear, however, does mean a ton of smearing in the corners and cropping, though, so don't count on that as a normal way of operating with a fisheye lens.

Gary--fun! But I go back to my 360-degree virtual lenses for that kind of fun and make mirrorballs. It takes so much effort/time to stitch a 360x180, you tend to play around with them until you've squeezed the last bit of entertainment you can from them.

[benm]

Great thread! This reminds of making my own "fisheye" lens (years ago) using a door peep scope. Here is a link to what I mean:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/First-Wat...-202799734-_-N

I drilled a hole in a lens cap and glued the peep scope to the cap. Don't expect excellent IQ but it is fun and cost almost nothing for an interesting experiment.

[shreds]

Not quite fish eye, but my 14mm is always good for capturing stunning cloud formations and aircraft trails, but undoubtedly, its main use for me is indoors in tight situations. Also experiment holding it both in portrait (vertical) and landscape (horizontal); there is a massive difference in the distortion dependent upon your subject.

[Saorsa]

If you put the horizon line nearly in the center of the FOV you can get an almost normal image. This was taken with a Nikkor 10.5mm.


I cropped it to a banner format. You can see some curvature at the far end of the field and in the trees at the sides.

What makes this interesting to me is that the skein of White Pelicans flying overhead was turned into an interesting arc in the sky.

In another image, it creates an exaggerated perspective that makes a small puddle on a path look like a passageway.

[RustBeltRaw]

...I highly recommend looking at the RokiBowYang (as Cicala terms the many names of Samyang) 8mm fisheye. It's less than half the price (around $225-$250).

Considering my constant low-light work, the extra stop from the Sigma's f2.8 aperture would be worth it. Agreed about the AF, but unlike my Tokina 11-16mm f2.8, the Sigma 10mm f2.8 fish doesn't seem to hunt much.

And yeah, that's a fantastic shot--foreground interest plays a big part with fisheyes.

When I first saw that shot, I just stared at it for about ten minutes. Then I may have cussed slightly. Because holy crap.

Think of it like an extreme plussed ultrawide.

"Your lens is double-plus wide, Winston."

There's also the fact that with digital post-processing, you do have some control over the amount of distortion/mapping. Complete defishing to rectilinear, however, does mean a ton of smearing in the corners and cropping, though, so don't count on that as a normal way of operating with a fisheye lens.

Complete defishing seems odd to me. Assuming you own one and you had a chance to swap, why not use an ultrawide?

[inkista]

Considering my constant low-light work, the extra stop from the Sigma's f2.8 aperture would be worth it.

Oh, yup. Plus it'd be nice to have autofocus vs. trying to adapt a Nikkor 10.5 (which was what a lot of Canon pano shooters did before the Sigma came out and which is tougher than it sounds because the 10.5 is a DX G lens, so no aperture ring). And we won't go into shaving crop fisheyes for FF [oi] (although, I do have to note, I did laugh when I saw some NEX users had taken the mft Samyang 7.5mm and shaved it for APS-C).

Complete defishing seems odd to me. Assuming you own one and you had a chance to swap, why not use an ultrawide?

Exactly. However, in my case, I don't have the ultrawide, so I've attempted it. If you're willing to give up the corners, it's not bad. But I'd rather have an actual ultrawide instead.

[jcuknz]

Thankyou Kathy for your comments ... you have made me quite excited for the arrival of my Samyang towards the end of January

[inkista]

You're gonna love how sturdy it feels and how tiny it is. It's one of the lenses that makes mft a real joy for me.

[RobertsMx]

Here's a recent use of Rokinon 8mm f/2.8 E (Sony E-mount, on NEX-6):

Previously (on NEX-3):