Pixiq

I don’t use a fisheye lens often because usually curved vertical and horizontal lines don’t appeal to me.  This kind of distortion is fun to play with for a short time, but it gets old very fast.

 A particularly unique situation in which a fisheye lens is perfect for the job, however, is when you photograph something round.  For example, in the above image of the circular chandelier and the domed ceiling of a mosque in Istanbul,  I shot with Canon’s 15mm fisheye. The graphic composition looks much more dramatic than had I taken this with an equivalent focal length in a rectilinear lens.  I own the Canon 14mm ultra wide angle lens also, and even though it is a bit wider, it wasn’t able to compete with the fisheye in producing such a dynamic picture.

 When you shoot something round with a fisheye, the extreme distortion that makes fisheyes well known seems to be absent.  You can’t make a round object ‘more round’, so there is no apparent distortion. It is obvious, though, that the subject doesn’t quite look like we see it with our eyes.  The perspective looks expanded and dramatized, and it’s a unique interpretation of the subject.

In photographing the beautiful architecture, I was careful to position myself such that the center of the chandelier was perfectly in line with the center of the dome in the ceiling.  Had I been even slightly off, the picture would not be perfect