Fish-eye lenses. Fisheye (lens)

What are fish-eye lenses and how to best use them

In the case of every professional photographer, as well as most amateur photographers, not only the camera itself is stored, but also several lenses. If the presence of a standard zoom lens, telephoto lens and wide-angle lens in the case

The main difference between ultra wide angle lens and the fisheye is that the fisheye itself does not correct distortion at all and thanks to this it has a viewing angle of about 180 degrees.

And if we consider standard wide-angle lenses, they have special lenses in the optical design that correct the image, but because of this the viewing angle is greatly reduced, and photographs are obtained with minimal distortion, not at all like those of fisheyes.

You should also understand that depending on the camera (crop or full frame), you need and different, for crop, fisheye is needed with a focal length of 8-10mm, and for full frame - 15-16mm. And be sure to pay attention to which camera the fisheye was created for, crop cameras or full frame, the viewing angle depends on this.

For SIGMA lenses, if there is DG in the name, it means it is for full frame, if DC is for crop.

Another important point, all fisheye lenses are divided into 2 categories: diagonal and circular fisheye. The first ones are more popular due to the fact that they have a diagonal coverage of 180 degrees and almost the entire frame area is filled with the image.
A circular fisheye creates a circle right in the center of the frame, and the rest of the frame is just black without an image.

Fisheye: practical application

Every novice photographer knows, or has at least heard of, a lens called fisheye. But how to find a use for it, besides photo entertainment and experiments? Not many people will answer this question, limiting themselves to standard phrases, like: “Well, ultra-wide angle, there, spherical panoramas, etc.”
But this would not be enough to buy expensive "fish eye", - is not it?

Wide angles are often in demand in artistic and technical photography. From this point of view, fisheye would be very useful, if not for one “but”. This type of lens has strong geometric aberrations, which are not always amenable to normalization by software. Therefore, the technical field, where geometric accuracy is important, is unlikely to be interested in such a lens. Exceptions may be made in specific industries, such as aerial photography or surveillance.

Fine art photography is finding more uses for ultra-wide viewing angles and the specific aberrations associated with them. Monstrous barrel-shaped distortions can be played up, resulting in very extraordinary and interesting pictures.

A fisheye lens is different from a regular lens wide-angle optics the ability to capture an angle of up to 180 degrees or more (in practice, up to 200 degrees). This means that a half-circle panorama can be made with it in one frame. True, such efficiency is associated with the appearance of distortions that resemble a reflection in a Christmas tree decoration.

Often advertisers and filmmakers find it fun to use fisheye to create creative products. By and large, something similar can be made from an ordinary (geometrically correct) photo using Photoshop filters. But a fisheye imitation will always be inferior to the original, since no plugin is able to fill the missing degrees of viewing angle.

By the way, for advertising and various media products, the fisheye lens is a powerful creative tool. It can make even a construction waste dump interesting, not to mention something more attractive. In addition, fisheye can be used to remove cool spherical panoramas, simulate the image from a door peephole or outdoor surveillance cameras, take pictures of the interiors of tight spaces.

In architectural photography, it would seem, there is no place for geometric distortions. But sometimes you just can’t do without an ultra-wide angle. You can photograph the entire interior of a small room only with a fish eye. Of course, barrel distortion and vignetting will make their own adjustments, but the human brain has a remarkable ability to organize distorted objects. No matter how fisheye “twists” the interior, the floor plan and the original appearance of the objects will still remain clear to the observer.

When listing a property for sale, modern agencies are increasingly including ultra-wide-angle photographs in their portfolios. They make such objects more attractive, but at the same time advertisers always have an ironclad justification that this is not a deliberate embellishment, but a technically forced optical effect.

The simplest optical device capable of covering an angle close to 180 degrees is a door peephole.

Even in its cheapest version, it consistently demonstrates an ultra-wide angle. Some amateur photographers even manage to adapt a door peephole to their camera to get the desired “fish-eye” effect. The quality of pictures taken using such an optical system, of course, leaves much to be desired. in this sense, at an unattainable level. Already at a focal length of 10-15 mm, fisheye demonstrates the full range of effects of ultra-wide-angle optics.

For amateur photographers, the fisheye lens opens up a lot of new possibilities. It reveals a previously inaccessible creative layer with inexhaustible potential. On tourist trips, at exhibitions, concerts, outdoors and in the zoo, at the stadium or playground - fisheye can be used everywhere. In this case, the pictures will not only be funny, but also more informative.

We recommend not to go for cheap products, but to buy SIGMA fisheye lenses: they are exclusively made in Japan, have excellent optical characteristics and are made of very high quality.

Happy shooting!

I probably should have written about this topic a long time ago - after all, the emblem of my page is a slightly modified squid eye. Of course, a squid is not a fish, but it is still an underwater inhabitant. And then two fell into my hands optical instrument, on which, despite their Slavic origin, “Fish-eye” (in the Russian version) and “Fisheye” (without a dash - in Belarusian) were proudly displayed. Well, I barely coped with their English, and therefore in the future we'll talk about fish eyes.

A person, if he examines an object without moving his pupil, can cover a visual angle of no more than 60 degrees. It follows that without moving the pupil, you can view a picture with a size approximately equal to the distance to it. Therefore, if we want to take in a photograph at a glance from a distance of best vision of 25 cm, then it should be approximately A4 format. Based on these considerations, normal lenses used for most types of photography are designed. They have a focal length close to the frame diagonal, and, accordingly, a field of view angle of 4050 degrees. If with such a lens we try to shoot through the surface of the water or through the flat glass of an underwater housing, then the angle of view, according to Snell's law, will decrease from 50 degrees to 37. (According to Snell's law, the ratio of the sine of the angle of incident light to the sine of the angle of refracted light equal to the relative refractive index of the medium. The relative refractive index of air:water is 1.33.) To ensure that the field of view does not become so narrow during underwater photography, special lenses for underwater photography have been developed, one of the brilliant representatives of which is Hydrorussar. I don’t know from what angle fish and other underwater inhabitants look at the world, but if we assume that they still see the same 50 degrees, then, looking from under the water at our world, they will be able to cover 68 degrees.

Ultra-wide-angle lenses are lenses with a field of view greater than 83 degrees. We tried to make similar lenses for underwater photography. If these lenses are used in our aerial world, their angle of view will increase from 83 to 123 degrees. If the angle of view of the lens under water approaches 100 degrees, then, having emerged to the surface, it will be able to immediately cover almost a hemisphere, that is, 180 degrees. Of course, if such a photograph is viewed as a whole, it will look very unnatural. To get anything close to the real thing, you would have to look at this photograph piece by piece. However, unlike fish, the love of thrills is apparently in our blood, and photographers really enjoyed using just such lenses for outdoor photography. I believe that the lenses I am considering are like MS Zenitar-M 2.8/16 produced by the Krasnogorsk Plant named after. S.A. Zverev” and “MS Peleng” 3.5/8A produced by the Belarusian State Enterprise “MMZ im. S.I.Vavilov" - are intended for land use and were developed as such. According to the passport, both of these lenses allow you to obtain a coverage angle of 180 degrees when photographing on film with a frame size of 24x36 mm. But if Zenitar allows you to get the required 180 degrees only along the diagonal of the frame, then Peleng has an image field smaller size frame, and he fits a circular image into the frame, resulting in an exposed circle with a diameter of 24 mm on the film. Characteristic feature The optical design of all such lenses is a meniscus-shaped lens, with a concave surface directed towards the lens.
Optical design of the MS Zenitar-M lens

The lenses we are considering are designed for SLR cameras. With such devices, it is impossible to bring the lens close to the film, since there must be space for a mirror between the lens frame and the film. The optical design turns out to be significantly more complex than the classic one, and the rear main point, from which the focal length is measured, is located behind the rearmost lens of the lens. Thus, the working distance of lenses when threaded with an M42 thread is 45.5 mm, and the focal length of Peleng is 8 mm, and that of Zenitar is 16, respectively. It should be noted here that Fisheye lenses have a qualitative difference from ultra-wide angle lenses, and for them, the usual relationship between focal length and field of view angle is not maintained. So, similar to Zenithar Canon lens The EF 15 mm f/2.8 Fisheye has a field of view of 180 degrees, while the same company's ultra-wide-angle lens with a focal length of 14 mm (EF 14 mm f/2.8l USM) has a diagonal field of view of only 114 degrees.

One more design feature similar lenses is that the filters are located not in front of the lens, but behind its last lens instead of a special compensator. These filters come with the lens and are intended exclusively for black and white photography: yellow-green ZhZ-2x, yellow Zh-1.4x, red K-8x for Zenitar and yellow-green ZhZ-1.8x, orange O-2 ,8x, ultraviolet UV-1x for Bearing. Wide-angle lenses have significant chromatic aberrations, and color filters can somewhat reduce their impact.

The lenses are certainly fun, and can be very useful to many film photographers. But they were included in my reviews because, in my opinion, they can play an even more significant role in digital photography. Recently, digital SLRs with interchangeable lenses have moved from the category of inaccessible exotics with exorbitant prices to the category of still very expensive, but still quite mass-produced products. They are built on the basis of standard 35 mm cameras and are designed to use the appropriate optics. The most famous are the Canon EOS D-30, EOS-1D, Nikon D1 and its modifications D 1X and D 1H, as well as the FujiFilm FinePix S1 Pro camera, built on the basis of the Nikon N 60 film camera, and digital Kodak DCS devices based on Canon and Nikon film cameras. To connect our heroes to Canon cameras, you can use the EOS-M42 adapter, which is now produced by many Russian and foreign companies (,). This is the option I tested. As for connecting to Nikon, the Zenitar lens is available both with an M42 thread and with a Nikon “F” mount. The Peleng lens is initially equipped with a replaceable shank with an M42 thread and a Nikon mount. However, judging by some articles in the press, this adapter cannot be inserted into Nikon without additional filing. I was unable to attach the special cover included in the kit to this adapter.

On the left are adapters Peleng - Nikon F, on the right M42 - Canon EOS

The revolutionary nature of the lenses under consideration lies in the fact that since the area of ​​the matrix of sensitive elements less area standard frame, on average, one and a half times, then although wide-angle lenses could be connected to digital cameras, it was not possible to obtain a large coverage angle. And we couldn’t even dream of an angle of 180 degrees. Canon does not produce circular Fisheye lenses, and the aforementioned Canon EF 15 mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens, which it produces, with an EOS D-30 matrix size of 22 mm wide, will give a coverage angle of approximately 110 degrees. Using the Peleng lens with the EOS D-30 camera, we no longer get a circular lens, but a completely standard “Fish-eye” lens with a diagonal coverage angle of 180 degrees. All that will remain from the circle is a slight vignetting of the corners of the frame. The prices of Slavic lenses are also quite revolutionary: 140 USD. for Peleng and 90 USD for Zenithar versus 820 for the branded one from Canon. The downside is the lack of autofocus and jumping aperture. More precisely, the Zenitar has a jumping aperture, but you can use it only by screwing this lens into the Zenit. The Peleng lens has a mechanism pre-installation aperture with two rings, similar in design to the old Helios 44 or the Mir1V lens. As for automatic focusing, for lenses of this design this is not the most important thing, since in most cases it is enough to set the lens to infinity once and for all. The depth of field of these lenses is such that with an aperture of 5.6, the Zenithar will have a sharp image from 1 m to infinity, and the Peleng from 0.4 m to infinity. Even if you are shooting close-up objects, the necessary focusing accuracy is easy to obtain using the distance scale. Photo

When creating the photographs below, we used all the methods available today in digital photography for obtaining frames with great And m coverage angle. So there are two main possibilities:

1) the use of afocal attachments that reduce the focal length, together with non-replaceable lenses;
2) the use of fisheye lenses for film cameras.

Pictures of the embankment were taken from one point: Casio QV 3000 , lens focal length 7 mm. On the left is a small image of the entire frame, on the right is a 1:1 fragment

Casio QV 3000 , the focal length of the lens is 7 mm + an afocal attachment from Hama x0.65 is installed on the lens. There is vignetting of the corners, but this phenomenon is not necessary. You can use more expensive attachments of the same magnification, which have a larger lens diameter, or move this attachment a little closer to the lens. In the latter case, there is one “but”. You should not accidentally touch the focal length lever, because when moving, the lens will rest against the attachment, which can damage it

Canon EOS D30 with Zenitar lens


Canon EOS D30 with Peleng lens

The second series of images compares the fisheye view with a standard Canon 28-80 film lens.

As you can see, if the photograph taken by Peleng includes the entire building of the musical theater, Zenitar - b O Most of it, then when shooting, in general, quite wide-angle for film with a lens with a focal length of 28 mm, I had to turn the camera 90 degrees just so that the building would fit into the frame in height.

The design of fisheye lenses does not allow the use of lens hoods when shooting. Therefore, how the lens handles the light sources in the frame is an important factor. As you can see in the above photo, Peleng copes quite well with flashlights.

With a 180-degree field of view, unwanted objects can enter the frame, such as the photographer's hand when holding the lens barrel. Unlike point light sources, scattering light surfaces near the lens produce a significant halo at the edge of the frame and significantly impair perception. Ideally, the subject should be brightly lit in the center, while the edges should preferably be placed in shadow. Such lighting is easy to achieve in a pavilion, but during outdoor shooting it is almost impossible, and the range of brightness in the frame will exceed the capabilities of both the film and the matrix. Therefore, from the very beginning you need to decide which details you want to work out and which ones you will have to ignore. It is impossible to embrace the immensity.

Although such optics make it possible to obtain classic panoramic images, its capabilities in this regard are inferior to both specialized panoramic devices and digital stitching of panoramas from a series of images.

Basically, such optics are designed to obtain artistic effects from free use of perspective and curvature of the coordinate system.

Photos were taken with a Canon EOS D30 camera with a Peleng lens. Photos taken with the Zenitar lens can be found in the article “Technology in the hands of a savage.” Test results

The dependence of the signal amplitude on the frequency of the ring strokes is displayed in the graphs. The values ​​shown are for the green channel. For ease of comparison, you can select only the curves you are interested in by marking the corresponding positions. All pictures were taken at aperture 5.6. The diameter of the world is 125 mm. The amplitude at the minimum frequency of strokes is taken as unity. To assess the resolution at the edges of the frame, the world was positioned in the center of the frame and focusing was carried out, and then the device was rotated so that the image of the world was on the edge.

The abscissa axis shows the number of black and white stripes per 100 pixels. The Canon EOS D30 camera matrix has 100 pixels per millimeter, while the SONY ICX252AQ matrix installed in the Casio QV 3000 camera has about a third of a millimeter. The 100 black lines per millimeter that a Canon lens installed in a Casio should provide is very not an easy task. The camera tries to help him by emphasizing the sharpness at the edges. This is what determines the hump on the graphs. As long as the stroke width is large, the border underlining effect does not affect the results, since we select values ​​in the middle of the bar. When the concepts of band and boundary coincide, we get a paradoxical, from an optical point of view, increase in contrast with frequency. In the EOS D30, the edge accentuation, with default settings, is not so pronounced. Chromatic aberrations in the hama attachment are practically not corrected, and it is because of them that we have a significant deterioration in the MTF when measuring along a line lying at .

Those who wish to familiarize themselves with the original photographs can view them worldwide.

To assess chromatic aberrations, consider the change in brightness in each channel when crossing the white stripe. The range shown in the pictures is 15 pixels.
Casio QV3000
Device Casio QV3000 + hama 0.65

When designing lenses, they achieve maximum combination at one point on the optical axis of rays of two colors: with a wavelength of 480 or 435.8 nm and 643.8 nm. Such lenses are called achromats. If rays of three colors are combined: 435.8 nm, 546.1 nm, 643.8 nm, then such lenses are called apochromats. As can be seen from our tests, the Canon lens mounted on the Casio QV 3000 camera can be classified as achromatic, since the blue and red rays are combined, and the green one gives a halo at the border of the black stroke.

Comparison digital images, taken with a Peleng lens using an orange filter, showed that the result is equivalent to turning off the blue channel and its use does not provide any advantages. K-8x is mainly used when shooting on infrared film, and is not applicable for most digital cameras, since it lets through what the filter located in front of the matrix cuts off. Conclusion

It's finished. The existing line of lenses makes it possible to obtain the same coverage angle as in film photography on existing matrices.

Zenitar can be considered an ultra-wide-angle lens with acceptable distortion. Of course, the Canon EF 14 mm f/2.8l USM lens has significantly best characteristics, but the price of 2.5 thousand green seems excessive, especially considering that there are computer methods for reducing distortion that can be applied to photographs taken by Zenitar without significant deterioration in quality. Bearing is a real “Fisheye” for cameras like the Canon EOS D30 at a very, very reasonable price.

Further increase in the linear size of the matrix is ​​now a matter of comfort, and not of expanding the capabilities of digital photography. The integral resolution of the matrices also already exceeds the capabilities of the lenses. If there are still not enough sensitive elements in the center of the frame, then there is a clear excess of them along the edges. Perhaps the time has come to think about creating matrices with a variable density of sensitive elements - more in the center, less at the edges.

I still believe that SLR digital cameras are somewhat artificial, and the future belongs to digital cameras like FED (Leica) with a screen on the back. If there are already lenses for SLR cameras with a flange length of 45 mm, providing a coverage angle of 180 degrees on a 22 mm wide matrix, then the creation of digital cameras based on rangefinder devices with a flange length of 28.8 mm will allow the use of lenses that are simpler in design and of higher quality. At the same time, it will remain possible to use the entire line of lenses designed for a wide variety of SLR cameras using adapter rings, using the LCD screen as a viewfinder. The currently observed renaissance of film rangefinder cameras (Bessa devices and Voigtlander optics from Cosina) makes such a development even more likely and desirable.

I am glad to welcome you again, subscribers and guests of my blog. I’m in touch with you, Timur Mustaev. On the blog pages you could already read an article about, as well as about. It talks quite well about their types, features and purpose. Today’s article will tell you what a fisheye lens is or, as it is called in the West, fisheye.

To begin with, it’s worth identifying what this wonderful set of lenses is, and why it’s called that. To be precise, it is one that has a viewing angle close to 180 degrees. IN general classification it can be designated as ultra-wide-angle. Where did the name come from? It's simple: the principle of its operation is similar to the structure of the eye of fish.

Can fisheyes differ from each other?

Certainly. Moreover, there are several types of them.

• The first and most common is circular. Its peculiarity is that it does not cover the entire area of ​​the frame, but only shows an inscribed circle. Why is it needed? For interesting panoramas or a 360-degree panorama effect. It will also do an excellent job of capturing the sky.
• The second type is diagonal. Why diagonal? The 180-degree viewing angle is distributed horizontally across the frame, resulting in it being completely filled. This time, the full frame fits into the maximum viewing angle of the lenses, and not vice versa, as in the previous case.
• The last type is mechanisms with a viewing angle of more than 180 degrees. There are very few such lenses, but they exist, and you shouldn’t forget about them either.

Why were such lenses invented?

In general, they have been used for quite a long time: approximately since the beginning of the last century. But fisheye was used extremely rarely: photos of small streets, narrow corridors, cramped rooms. Now it is actively used by athletes, most often representatives of street disciplines, for example, BMX. Why Fisheye?

It's simple: it allows you to capture a large space around the athlete, which allows you to better convey the atmosphere of performing a trick, capturing the architectural structures that served as a support for a bicycle, roller skates or the soles of sneakers. In addition, this solution is relevant for both photo and video shooting.

In addition to sports, fisheyes are used in architectural photography, as before, as well as to create 3D panoramas of any objects. By the way, to create the Goolgle Earth service, the corporation used Fisheye.

Fisheye lens design

Due to the location of the lenses in the mechanism, images taken with it will have several disadvantages. The first, most obvious one is barrel-shaped. The image will be greatly stretched forward, and the background will seem too far away. In other words, this is something that manufacturers consciously undertake.

Yes, this distorts straight lines, “distances” the background from the foreground, and enlarges the latter, but this allows you to get rid of the limitation of the viewing angle, which is what most of the target audience of such lenses needs.

Another drawback relates to the Fisheye hood. As a rule, their fastenings are extremely small. They may not be suitable for both Canon and Nikon, and adapters that increase its size will also make the lens hood part of the frame, so manufacturers usually install them during production.

This can be called the reason for the impossibility of installing different filters on the lens. In addition, they will be of little use if installed in front of convex glass. Because of this, gelatin filters are usually installed behind the last lens, making them impossible to quickly replace. To correct the problem, manufacturers began to equip the Fisheye with a rotating filter system consisting of standard set colors.

What can such a lens be mounted on?

There are many variations of the fish eye. The most common is the fisheye version for the phone. These are sold in almost every mobile store and cost pennies, which is why they are very easy to buy. There is a huge selection on Aliexpress. This is what a search on Aliexpress gives for the request: fisheye lens for phones.

There are also models for iPhone, and they are well equipped. Sometimes doubt arises that the photo was taken on an iPhone. They can also be found by searching on Aliexpress, fisheye lens for iPhone. They cost mere pennies, but the results are obvious.

To avoid buying a fisheye lens for your phone, some craftsmen manage to create them with their own hands. Sometimes the result exceeds all expectations, but more often than not, such crafts are not successful.

Don’t forget about cleaning your lenses, whether it’s on your phone or your camera. Fingerprints, dust and other debris, better clean up special pencil, and you can also use special cloths for cleaning. I have both. I also bought these on Aliexpress.

In general, the article can be finished. I told you everything I knew about Fisheye in its general understanding. If you were interested in the article, tell your friends about it, subscribe to my blog if you haven’t already, and continue reading my articles. They will tell you about many photography techniques, its technical and practical aspects. See you later!

All the best to you, Timur Mustaev.

The fisheye lens is recognized as one of the best lenses for realizing photographers' creative visions. In terms of affordability, the fisheye lens is an inexpensive lens (around $650), making it quite popular among beginners and professionals alike.

If we look at the history of the creation of this lens, it should be noted that initially it was not called a “fish-eye” at all, but a “all-sky lens,” as it was used in meteorology to observe the formation of cloud masses and to study the entire sky. Such optics had one peculiarity - it unusually distorted lines, creating unique effects in photographs. This attracted the attention of some photographers, and soon the lens gained mass popularity, received a new name and wide application in the field of general photography. These days, many photographers enjoy using it for both amateur and professional photography, but more for the purpose of creative fun.

In this article I will tell you about 5 interesting ways creative uses of the fisheye lens...

1. Radial blur

Photographing a wedding with a fisheye lens can produce amazing results. Such events usually take place in low light conditions and pose a serious challenge for photographers. When shooting at a wedding, I usually choose a position in the center of the dance floor and just shoot.

To achieve a radial blur effect, simply reduce to 1/25th of a second and then rotate the camera counterclockwise 90 degrees, supporting the lens with your left hand and turning the camera body with your right. Not all pictures will turn out to be of high quality, but you can always choose a sufficient number of good shots.

2. The effect of the curvature of the Earth (the so-called distortion)

One thing to watch out for when using a fisheye lens is that the closer the subject gets to the edge of the frame, the greater the distortion. If you place the horizon in the middle of the frame, it will remain completely straight throughout the entire photo. Increase this distortion by moving the horizon line as close to the top of the frame as possible. Just be careful, you might come home and find an image of your feet at the bottom of the photo.

3. Shooting panoramic landscapes without fisheye effect

Sometimes the fisheye effect can be used simply to capture everything you want in one frame. Often you don't want distorted lines, but you need a very wide shooting angle. If you're shooting without straight lines (buildings, trees, telephone poles, etc.), you can sometimes position the lens in such a way that the photo just looks like it was taken with a regular wide-angle lens. Just make sure that the horizon line is strictly in the center of the frame. This allows you to fit almost a 180-degree shot into a single frame without the distortion that comes with a fisheye lens.

4. Shooting the ceiling in one shot

It is almost impossible to photograph the entire ceiling in one shot with conventional lenses. This shot of a ceiling that has a very large area, was made at Texas Gaylor in Grapevine, Texas. In buildings with symmetrical architecture like this, to get nice shot Using a regular lens, you would have to mark shooting spots on the floor with a marker many times to determine the exact middle of the room. When I looked up and saw that ceiling, I knew that a fisheye was the only lens that would work in these conditions!

5. Change the perspective and shooting angle!

The most important thing for a photographer is to enjoy shooting, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re shooting for yourself or for a client (as in the photo above). The fisheye is a prime lens, which means you won't be able to zoom in (zoom in or out) with it. So, the role of the zoom remains with you, that is, you yourself must approach or move away from the object. You will have to change the perspective yourself and experiment with different angles and lines. You can crouch down, lower the camera closer to the ground, or even lie down on the ground, on grass or on rocks, or even on gravel on railway. You can press yourself against a wall and use lens distortion to create the effect of the wall “wrapping” around the frame. Just have fun!