Fun with a fisheye
John Dewolf uses a budget APS-C fisheye lens on his full-frame Z camera to photograph super-wide circular landscapes
The barrel distortion effect is so extreme it’s precisely what makes using a fisheye lens so much fun!
MISSION: Explore landscape photography with a fisheye lens PHOTOGRAPHER: John Dewolf LOCATION: Connecticut, USA KIT USED: Nikon Z 7, Ttartisan 7.5mm f/2
I’ve been interested in photography ever since I purchased a used Canon reflex camera when I was in graduate school. I then moved onto a Pentax Spotmatic SLR, until I eventually switched to Nikon SLR cameras in the 1990s. I stuck with Nikon when I made the jump to digital and am currently using a Nikon D7100 and Z 7.
When Ttartisan released a fisheye lens that was available for Z-mount cameras and at a very reasonable price (the total cost was approximately $150/£112), I jumped at the opportunity to add a fourth lens to my mirrorless collection.
The Ttartisan fisheye lens is fully manual (hence the lack of EXIF data) and has an extremely wide 180 degree field of view when the lens hood is removed. Like all fisheye lenses, it exhibits significant barrel distortion. Usually you’d try to mitigate barrel distortion in post-production, but the effect is so extreme it’s precisely what makes using a fisheye lens so much fun!
The lens allows you to remove the central part of the lens cap and, on my full-frame Z 7, this produces fantastic circular fisheye photos. I have always been interested in seeing how the use of a fisheye lens could expand my interest in photography, particularly landscape photography. All of the photographs here were taken with the central portion of the lens cap removed to create the super-wide circular compositions.
How wide can you go?
My first image [1] displays the barrel distortion that is typical of a fisheye lens. Because the horizon is in the bottom half of the photo, it appears convex. I had to focus manually since my Ttartisan 7.5mm f/2 lens doesn’t feature autofocus.
An advantage of fisheye lenses, as well as wide-angle lenses in general, is their large depths of field, even at wider apertures. I simply focused on the nearest trees and everything else appeared adequately in focus.
When the horizon is placed nearer the centre it appears to be more normal [2]. However, the barrel effect is still clear on the sides. The sunburst was obtained by using a narrow aperture. My experience has been that it’s easier to get starburst effects with the fisheye lens than with other lenses in my kit.
Everything that is close to the photographer appears enlarged, while
everything in the distance appears smaller than it really is. Here, the horizon is dead centre [3]. The lens’s super-wide field of view is evident as nearly all of the tree in the foreground is visible. In fact, so much is crammed into the frame, one needs to be careful to avoid fingers or feet encroaching on the photograph!
The next image [4] was taken with the camera very close to the edge of the pond and only a few inches above the ground. I focused roughly a third of the way into the frame and, because the focal length provides such a large depth of field, everything appears to be in focus.
My final exposure [5] was taken at sunrise, with the sun peering just over the horizon. The star’s bright orange glow appears as it was captured in-camera, with no digital alterations.