Swifti

Hi All, another newbie question. I recently saw some magnificent landscape photos that looked like they had a fisheye effect at the edges only, and fell in love. I guess it would be considered a diagonal fisheye effect. Do I need a special lens to get this effect, or is it more technique, or both? I have a Nikkon d500 camera and my lenses are the Nikon 200-500mm AF-S 1:5.6e ED and the Nikon 18-55mm AF-S 13.5-5.6 GII ED. Up to now, I have shot mostly birds and wildlife. The few landscapes I've shot, while sharp and well composed, have looked underwhelming to me.

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

Would it be possible to post a link to an example photograph?

Swifti

The photographer whom I really admire has many examples of this kind of work, but here's a link to one of his photos in this style: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-light-that-shines-our-way-home-phil-koch.html

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

That just looks like an ultra wide lens, not a fisheye.

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

I agree.
What makes these images so good is the light (and possibly the post processsing).

Swifti

Ah, ok...so with my d500 Nikon, can you recommend an ultra wide angle lens?

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

I am not a Nikon shooter, however ultra wide angle lenses for your camera start at around 10mm on the wide end.

hammond

I also have the Nikon D500 and love doing wide-angle shots of both landscapes and landmarks.

I use two very different lenses for these shots:
- the Sigma 10-20mm wide-angle
- the Nikkor 8-15mm fisheye

The main difference between the wide-angle and the fisheye is how they handle the lines: the further you move to the edges of the image, the more pronounced the effects become.

Here are two examples:

Wide-angle:
https://imgur.com/a/wdSt0G7

Fisheye:
https://imgur.com/a/3E0LBZ3

You will notice how the wide-angle lens corrects the lines at the edges so they remain straight, while the fisheye allows them to bend.

Note that on a crop-sensor like the D500, you can't really use the fisheye at less than 10mm, so while this lens does server as both a circular and diagonal fisheye lens, it cannot fit the entire circular image on the sensor, so you can't get those circular images (it crops off the top and bottom of the circle); which is fine for me, since I prefer rectangular ('diagonal') images anyway. It does zoom from 10-15mm in the diagonal range, and the fisheye effect becomes less pronounced as you zoom in.

I find the fisheye to be much more distorted: in a cool way, though by no means 'cooler': just different.
If I had to choose just one, I would probably opt for the wide-angle, since the images are more of what you'd expect to see, though I do love the fisheye, and some of the most unique images I've captured could only be created with such a lens.

Here is example of a landscape image captured first with the wideangle and next with the fisheye:

https://imgur.com/a/8O7Vdde

tcthome Loc: NJ

Yup. Probably 20mm & under should do it. Also favoring a little longer exposure should help stretch those clouds for you.

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

Sigma also makes a 8-16mm DX lens that is said to have good optics. To get this kind of "look" make sure that your lens starts out somewhere in the 8-12mm range.

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

My thought also, careful shooting with an ultra-wide, though a fish eye such as the Bower 8mm ( on APS-C) might also be interesting.

ssymeono Loc: St. Louis, Missouri

It looks like images made with the great 14mm/2.8.

Venky

Hammond,

Please let me know how you were able to take the shot of the Taj without anybody in it. Thanks in advance.

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

Shot with an UWA and HDR processed.

Selene03

Looks like some of the images I have gotten with the Canon 11-24 f4 lens. It is not a fisheye, but is a very wide angle with all of the wide angle distortion that can be used for artistic effect if used correctly.