What’s the difference between a fisheye and a wide-angle lens? The objects they’re using in their tricks – such as stairs and rails – look bigger and more elongated, so the result is more impressive.Īnd what works for skateboarding works for many other sports as well – for example, snowboarding and surfing, the golfer driving off, divers and climbers, or basketball players jumping for the ball. Skateboarders appreciate the look a fisheye lens gives. On the practical side of things, a fish-eye lens is much less likely to lose track of the moving athlete as they ‘kick flip’ or ‘grind a ledge’ at high speed. The curved sides of the lens element give the image an encapsulated look – the athlete being in a world of their own that we are not a part of.
The fisheye enhances the height above the ground showing the figure against the sky, and we see the full body shape without interference from confusing background elements. Photographers and filmmakers often use fisheye to capture the dynamic movement of skateboarding. However, there are a few examples of zoom fisheye lenses – we cover these and more in our list of best fisheye lenses later in this article.
Many fisheye lenses are manual focus – but with such a wide angle view, and as you’ll often be shooting at narrower apertures, getting sharp manual focus with a fisheye isn’t too taxing.įisheye lenses are usually prime lenses, so there’s no zooming in or out – you have to do the moving to get into a good position. The field of view is reduced, though still extremely wide. Full-frame fisheye lens – projects the hemispherical image beyond the sensor producing a rectangular image of the scene, but one which uses the sensor’s full array of pixels.Circular fisheye lens – typically captures light from 180 degrees in all directions and projects a complete hemispherical image onto the camera sensor, producing a circular image on a black rectangle.
It’s important to note that fisheye lenses come in two types: You’ll find underwater photographers, extreme sport photographers, astrophotographers, and even architectural photographers utilising these types of ultra-wide-angle lenses on their camera.Īs we explore further, there can be an abstract and artistic nature to image making with a fisheye. In the 1960s, fisheye lenses for 35mm cameras were introduced for general photography and were used for an increasingly wide range of specialist and creative uses. Named after how a fish would see – hence the name ‘fisheye’ – these new lenses were at first used for scientific purposes, studying cloud formations and weather. A fisheye lens is an ultra-wide-angle lens that captures ‘curved panoramic’ or ‘hemispherical’ images, usually at 180 degrees.