Weekend Inspiration: The Lowly Fisheye

Photo by Toughkidcst

Sometimes the fisheye is the Rodney Dangerfield of photography.  Detractors will describe it as a one-trick pony, a special purpose lens, even as a gimmick.  The extremely wide angle of view throws distortion all over the place, making it exactly the wrong lens for architectural photos (unless you like seeing buildings unnaturally curving up into the top of  the frame) and portraits (unless you like making everyone look like Uncle Morty with that honker of his).  Yeah, can’t do all that much with it.

I came across these images posted here, however, in this link.  It’s chock full of 100 inspiring images taken with a fisheye lens… even architectural and portraits.  Uncle Morty never looked so good.

Because fisheyes can be among the cheapest lenses in your arsenal, produced in manual focusing options for mirrorless cameras by Samyang and Rokinon, it may be worth picking one up and seeing what you can do.  And most image editing programs allow the ability to eliminate distortion, to “de-fish” your images… though thoroughly “fished” photos can be interesting expressions as well.

If you decide to try (or if you’re a veteran fisheye photographer), send us one or two of your best and we’ll post it here.

Have a great weekend!

Photo by Paul Stevenson

Photo by Tsak d

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