photoartflightMaking Panoramas With Fisheye Lenses
Posted on February 12, 2022
One of my favorite lenses for shooting images for panoramas is the 7 Artisans 7.5mm Fisheye lens for m43 cameras. It is supposed to have a 190 degree Field of View on a m43 camera but I believe it is a little less than that. But for shooting panoramas it really does not matter and is wide enough for my needs. But using a Fisheye lens for multi-image panoramas you have to de-fish the fisheye lens images before you blend the images for the final panorama. I do this in Photoshop using the Adaptive Wide Angle (Filter > Adaptive>Wide Angle.) All Images here were taken at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville NJ.
It might take a few tries before you get the “Feel” for using the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter for correcting the distortion in Fisheye lenses. Also it is pretty much setup for Full Frame Cameras so on m43 cameras (or any other format besides Full Frame you have to experiment on entering Focal length, etc. You would think Adobe would have a setting for Camera Format.
Atlantic City Early AM Panorama
Posted on February 8, 2022
An early morning panorama of Atlantic City from the Wildlife Drive at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville NJ. This is a 3 image panorama shot with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens on an Olympus OMD-1. Before I could make the panorama I had to de-fish the Fisheye images in Photoshop using the Adaptive Wide Angle Feature under the “Filter” Selections along the top right selections. Once they were de-fished I loaded the 3 images into a layered Photoshop File and selected all 3 layers and used “Edit – Align Layers” for the 3 images, then once they were aligned I used “Edit Blend Layers” for the Final Panorama.
Davidsons Mill Pond park Panoramas
Posted on September 15, 2021
We went to Davidsons Mill Pond Park to take a walk and see if there were any interesting photo subjects. I was traveling light & was just using my iPhone 11 Pro and an Olympus OM-D M1 with a 7.5mm Fisheye Lens. The landscape panoramas in this post were all taken with the OM-D with the 7.5mm Fisheye lens. The 7 Artisans 7.5mm Fisheye lens on a m43 camera supposedly has a Field of View of 190 degrees, but on the Olympus m43 I think it is a little less than that. Before assembling my multi-image panoramas in Photoshop, I used Photoshop’s Adaptive Wide Angle Filter to de-fisheye the images used in all the panoramas. The Featured Image is made from 4 Horizontal images of the front view of the Small Pond along the roadway. Because I was using a Fisheye lens I also overlapped the images more than usual to have a better chance of them aligning for the final image.
Multi-Image Fisheye Images
Posted on April 20, 2021
Here are some more Fisheye images taken with the 7.5mm 7 Artisans Fisheye lens on a m43 format camera. The featured image is one of my first multi-image Fisheye Panoramas. This is a 2 image Fisheye Pano taken on a gray day & light rain. With the 7.5mm Fisheye lens it seems that manually “blending” the images with a “soft” edge mask works best for assembling the panoramas in Photoshop. I then used the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter under “Filters” in Photoshop. I used the 15mm setting because the “Filter” is set up for Full Frame Digital Cameras. So the 7.5mm m43 lens would be an approximate 15mm field of view equivalent. If I ran it at 7.5mm I would get a jagged circular image in the middle of a white empty background. After you use the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter you can then fine tune your images using the “Warp” feature in Photoshop for even more fine tuning. Once you get used to using a Fisheye lens your results are more predictable and they are fun to use.
Something Fishy & DeWarping Fisheye Images
Posted on April 2, 2021
I used to use 15mm fisheye lenses on film cameras for interesting images back in the film days before digital. I usually used them for an interesting & different look here & there in multi-projector slide shows I used to produce for our Corporate clients. When Microsoft Powerpoint presentations came out, multi-projector Corporate slide shows died a quick death. With digital imaging starting to be more affordable in the early days, Fisheye lenses were not as popular in my Commercial work. When we needed one we would just borrow one from where we bought our supplies & equipment. But being retired now it is an interesting way to get very wide views and then in post processing to De-Fish them. I was looking for a used Canon 15mm Fisheye lens for landscapes, but they seemed to be going for extremely high prices. Canon discontinued the 15mm Fisheye lens (FOV 180°) replacing it with the 8-15mm Fisheye zoom. I did not want a zoom fisheye but noticed that 7 Artisans had a 7.5mm Fisheye lens for m43 cameras with a FOV of 180°. Looking online at where I usually buy my equipment lately I noticed a version 2 was about to come out in 2 -3 weeks with a 190° Field of View and with better optics. So I was going to order one, but my wife looked on Amazon and it was available now. So I had it in a couple of days. The featured image is 6 m43 images shot @ 7.5mm with an Olympus OM-D 1 with the 4:3 format. This was assembled in Photoshop using the images as they were taken. I also overlapped the images more than usual because of the smaller camera sensor as I was taking the images. After blending the images I used the Edit “Warp” feature in Photoshop to remove most of the fisheye effect. Depending on the image you can also get good results using Photoshop’s Adaptive Wide Angle feature under the “Filter setting”. Then use the “Edit” Transform -“Warp” feature to adjust the corners to where it diminishes most of the “Curving” in the corners. It also helps when using a Fisheye lens to have the main horizon line somewhat centered in the image to avoid the “bowing arc” of the horizon, Makes it easier to just have to deal then with the “Corners”.
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