What Is A Fisheye Lens? Everything You Should Know About It

What Is A Fisheye Lens?

A fisheye lens is a component of the camera that has an ultra-wide angle. This lens allows you to capture super-wide images with a spherical visuality.

1. Features of the fisheye lens

• The focal length of a standard fisheye lens is 8-10mm, and that of a full-frame lens is 15-16mm.

• At the widest point of a common fisheye lens, its angle of view is 180°.

• The fisheye lens will produce an image distortion called barrel distortion. This distortion will create a spherical view of the frame. So, people call the images captured by a fisheye lens curvilinear images.

• Fisheye lenses also have a significant depth of field caused by their super-wide angle.

2. Types of fisheye lenses

• Circular fisheye lens

A circular fisheye lens can shoot a 180° or larger view angle in every direction. This results in a circular image. But the produced image of a circular fisheye lens will have black edges.

• Full-frame fisheye lens

The full-frame fisheye lens is the most commonly used fisheye lens of photographers. It can capture a 180° field of view of the image. Thus, the produced image is a full circle in the frame, and there are no black edges.

3. Benefits of a fisheye lens

• A fisheye lens allows you to have a very close focus on the captured subject.

• You can take advantage of the large depth of view of a fisheye lens

• A fisheye lens works well even in a very short distance with large subjects. The product images will have great colors and a high level of sharpness.

• Fisheye lenses are very handy with small size and lightweight. Its price is also affordable.

What Are The Applications Of A Fisheye Lens?

A fisheye lens has many applications in photography. It is suitable for shooting in narrow spaces. You don't need to stay far to capture the entire scene with a fisheye lens.

A fisheye lens is perfect for highlight scale. It will magnify the size of objects that are nearer to the camera.

Fisheye lenses have an important application in underwater photography. You can capture an extremely wide-angle view without worrying about any distorted straight lines.

The images produced by fisheye lenses also have higher quality than rectilinear lenses. They have a higher level of sharpness and brighter colors.

The short focal length of a fisheye allows you to keep the context in action shots. You can capture most of the background while getting very close to the subject.

Fisheye lenses are also effective in shooting landscapes. The center of the frame will not get distorted. So, any vertical or horizontal lines appearing in this place will be still straight.

This makes fisheye lenses perfect lenses for photographing beach scenes. You can get the image of the entire scene with a straight horizon.

In planetariums, people use fisheye lenses for night sky projections. Fisheye lenses are also used for monitoring and controlling air traffic.

Astronomers use fisheye lenses to collect data on light pollution and cloud cover.

Fisheye lenses are also useful in taking motion shots. Cameramen will use a fisheye lens to focus on the moving subject. Watch this video to know more about the use of fisheye lenses in filming.

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In computer graphics, experts use fisheye lenses in making environment maps. These lenses are also used to take hemispherical photographs for scientific researches.

How To Deal With The Distortion Of Fisheye Lenses?

The distortion is what makes a fisheye lens special. It's also the advantage of a fisheye lens. But if you want to get your images straightened, there are solutions for you.

The software can help you to remove the distortion. Adobe Lightroom has the Lens Corrections panel that can deal with distortion effects. You need to choose the make and model of the lens you use. Then, the software will straighten your images.

But to have a perfect result, Adobe Lightroom is not the best choice. You should adjust the photo manually with the transform options of Adobe Photoshop.

The distortion doesn't happen in the center lines of the frame. So, you can also find these lines and select the right angle to shoot. This tip is very effective if you want to straighten the horizon when using a drone.

If you want to have a panoramic picture without distortion, take 3 pictures. Then, use Adobe Lightroom to fix the distortion in each picture.

After that, pieces them together. Remove the distorted parts on the sides. Then, replace them with the central parts of the side images.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the difference between a wide-angle lens and a fisheye lens?

A fisheye lens is a particular type of wide-angle lens with an ultra-wide shooting angle. What makes a fisheye and a wide-angle lens different is the distortion level they create.

A wide-angle lens will produce images with very little distortion. On the contrary, the distortion level of images taken by a fisheye lens is much higher.

2. What can I do with a fisheye lens?

You can create funny pictures with a fisheye lens. The short focal length of this lens makes the image bulge from the center outwards. So, they look weird and funny.

Besides, you can take fantastic landscape photos with a fisheye lens. It works well with underwater photography and landscape without straight lines.

3. Can I use a fisheye lens to take a portrait?

Yes, you can take a portrait with a fisheye lens. The image will have a bit strange look. Remember to keep the object far from the edge to avoid distortion.

So, we have provided you with all the information about the fisheye lens. If your hobby is photography, try using a fisheye lens to diversify your photos. It's not expensive but very useful.

If you have any questions about the fisheye lens, please leave a comment. Don't forget to visit our website every day to update the latest news about lenses!

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