Tag Archives: fisheye

Upstairs in the Rotunda

B11I1826.jpgI have been working in the Rotunda building for a couple of years near.  Previously we were based in the bottom of the building and I posted some shots of the atrium taken with a fisheye.  We recently moved offices to the upper floors and being up near the top of the space gave me the opportunity to explore the views from higher up.  For some reason, I hadn’t previously been upstairs to look around.

B11I1829.jpgThe top levels are restricted to the tenants of the respective space.  However, lower down you can access the space.  I figured it was still a good place for the fisheye and it was quite interesting to see what effects you could create.  The fun with the fish is choosing where to put the distortion.  You can even turn curves into reflex lines by getting them aligned appropriately.  It is amazing how much being out of center shows itself when you are using such a wide angle.  Something that looks symmetric to the eye results in a clear asymmetry with a fisheye.  At least with digital you see the result quickly if you chimp a little.

Fisheye Correction in Lightroom

I have a pretty well defined routine for importing and processing my images in Adobe Lightroom. I have presets for importing images that put them in the right folders, apply copyright information and apply development presets. I can then edit from there as I go. One of the settings I have set as a default is the application of the lens correction settings. This setting deals with any natural vignette in the lens as well as some distortion. Occasionally this can be tricky if you have something close to the edge of a wide lens and it gets slightly chopped by the correction.

AU0E3419-2.jpg AU0E3419.jpgI discovered a more extreme version of this while processing some shots from the Lick Observatory. I had taken my 8-15mm fisheye zoom with me as I thought there might be some use for it in the telescope buildings. It turned out to be a good thing to have. When I first had the lens, Adobe had not created a profile for the lens so the shots came in uncorrected with the fisheye look I expected. More recently, Adobe have created a profile for this lens. It was added in one of the updates and, since I don’t use the lens all of the time, I hadn’t noticed.

AU0E3382-2.jpg AU0E3382.jpgWhen I was going through the shots, I noticed the wide shots had some strange distortion at the edges. I was perplexed by this and also wondered where the circular fisheye shots were because I was sure I had taken some. Only then did I realize that these were those shots and the corrections were being applied. Here are some examples of the before and after with the correction to give you a idea of what the transformation is. A pretty dramatic change. I might make use of this sometimes but I shall also have to remember switching this off when shots with this lens are involved.

Lightning Up the Mood

A little night shooting today and a confession about my role in what was going on. We moved to Chicago eight years ago. When we first got here, we were amazed by the storms we got. There seemed to be lots of them and they were really pretty spectacular. When looking out of the window we would see lightning all the time. Sometimes the storms went on for so long it was hard to believe that it was a storm and not someone planting an emergency vehicle outside the window – a neat trick at the height of our place!

Strangely, for the last few years, we have had very few storms. They seem to miss the city and go either north or south of us. Some people are getting a lot of them but not us. This was a bit disappointing to me because I love storms! They are so dramatic and very cool. They are, of course, rather destructive but watching them is exciting. This week we got a good storm. The sky was alive and it was a lot of fun. It was also rather late and I needed to go to bed. Consequently, I cheated.

My 17-40mm lens is not enough to cover the full view south of us so I went with the fish-eye zoom instead. I set the camera up on the tripod, added the intervalometer and basically set it on its way. The gap between the shutter closing and the trigger for the next shot was just long enough to allow the file to write out. Then I went to bed. The result is a LOT of pictures with almost all of them of no use. However, it did capture a couple of shots that I really like. I even tried using the new lens correction facility in Photoshop CS6. Our view is a little less impressive since the Trump Tower blocked a big chunk of the skyline but it still gives a nice look to the storm. Hope you like them too.

Something Fishy

Let’s get the statements of the obvious out of the way first.  Yes, I am a bit of a “gear head”.  I am quite partial to stuff!  Does this mean that I sometimes get things that I don’t necessarily “need”?  Yes, of course.  Having got past that, let’s move on.

One thing I have been pondering for a while on the lens front was a fish-eye.  Not something that is needed on a regular basis but something that has its moments.  Canon had a couple of fishes that I was looking at.  They had the 8mm fish and the 15mm fish, both of which had things that interested me.  Which one was better for me?  My two main bodies are 1.3 crops but I do have a couple of APS-C sensor cameras which have the 1.6 crop.  All of this impacts the effect.  Besides, when buying lenses, who knows whether I will have a full frame camera at some point.

The result of all of these variables was that I never bought a fish-eye at all.  I just pondered what I should do at length and did nothing in the mean time.  Imagine, then, my delight when Canon announced the introduction of the 8-15mm fish-eye zoom.  Have they been bugging my thoughts to find out what I want?  I guess so.  That reminds me, I must start thinking more about other things I want them to develop!

Of course, the announcement of a new lens does not mean the availability of a new lens.  Recently, it seems the announcement can be far ahead of the delivery.  Obviously the issues in Japan resulting from the earthquake and tsunami have had a major impact but I suspect there is more to it than that.  Anyway, the thing is finally in the wild.  My friend Jim Koepnick was the first person I saw to have one.  They would appear in stores and be gone almost as fast.  No biggie since it wasn’t like I had been struggling without it.  Once they were regularly in store I placed my order.

I have to say, I love the thing.  It feels great in the hand and, despite what I have heard from some reviews, I have had no issues with the lens cap.  It is also a chance for me to start learning what can be done with such a lens.  There are the obvious effects you can get and the access to a lot of width in tight spaces.  However, it can also create interesting effects by changing the angle at which you hold it.

I went out in the city to give some time to experimentation.  I ended up in Millennium Park which is a slightly odd place to play with a fish since many of the features already have a slightly “fishy” look to them anyway.  Of course, that does sometimes allow the subject to be more tolerant of some distorting effects.  It was a fun place to shoot since it is always busy and getting close and using the fish provides some options as well as making surrounding people disappear into the background quite quickly.

I also played around with a couple of effects.  There is a metal frame across the lawn at the Pritzker Pavilion.  By tilting the camera down, I could really emphasise the curvature but by tilting it up, the frame became almost totally flat.  Something to remember.  I also played around with slightly rotating the camera.  This made the edge of the frame level and the receding horizon appears to turn up dramatically.  Not something to overdo but still a concept to remember for the future.

I am certainly happy that I have added the fish to the arsenal.  Now I have to make sure I make good use of it without slipping over the edge into using it when I shouldn’t.  Hopefully my friends will warn me if that is the case.  That, and I have to remember to keep myself out of my own shots!