What Is a Fisheye Lens?

This creates visual distortion that is distinct and is often used in creative photography.

What Makes a Fisheye Lens Ultrawide?

A wide-angle lens can capture an image that is about 100 degrees wide.

A view through a fisheye lens of a statue surrounded by pillars.

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All DSLR lenses except fisheye lenses are referred to asrectilinear lenses.

This is because light travels through the lens in a straight path to the image sensor.

This creates the straight lines you see in most photographs.

A view of a baseball stadium captured through a fisheye lens.

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This is the very effect that makes these lenses so popular.

That first fisheye lens had an 8mm focal length and an f/8aperture.

There are, however, two approaches to photography with a fisheye lens.

A photograph of a skydiver caught with a fisheye lens.

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The other group of photographers uses a fisheye lens specifically to capture the distortion the lens creates.

Another creative use for a fisheye lens is to take pictures with the lens pointing straight up.

This is useful in cityscape photography or even in landscape photography.

An image of a hammerhead shark captured with a fisheye lens.

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One more, slightly obscure use for fisheye lenses is inmobile photography.

Post-processing can play a couple of different roles in fisheye photography:

A bamboo forest photographed looking straight up through a fisheye lens.

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An image of a young child captured through a mobile fisheye lens.

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