photoartflightImpressive Cloud Formations @ Davidson’s Mill Pond Park
Posted on November 20, 2022
A few weeks ago we went to Davidson’s Mill Pond Park to take a walk through the woods. On the way to the path going through woods we noticed the cloud formations were very large & impressive. So I shot a series of multi-image cloud panoramas and some single image cloud views with my OM-D Mk1 with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens. Even with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens with a FOV 180 degrees I had to shoot multiple image panoramas to get the cloud formations in the shots. Because I was using a FishEye lens I had to de-fish the images with the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter in Photoshop before being able to blend the images for the panoramas. The Featured Image was a 3 Image Panorama taken with the OM-D 1 with the 7.5mm lens.
De-Fishing Multi-Image 7.5MM Fisheye Lens Panoramas
Posted on October 5, 2022
I like photographing multi-image panoramas and assembling them in Photoshop. Lately I have been doing a lot of panoramas with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens on an Olympus OM-D1 which has an image of 190 degrees field of view. But before I assemble the Panoramas I have to De-Fish the Fisheye Images in PhotoShop. To De-Fish the images I use the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter in Photoshop. Loading all the images in layers in one Photoshop file and using the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter for each layer to de-fish them before the final blending. Below is an example of de-fishing the image taken with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens on a m43 Olympus Camera. The Adaptive Wide Angle Filter I believe is set up for Full Frame Cameras so you might have to experiment on the Scale setting. It also helps when using the fisheye lens to have the horizon line somewhat in the center in the image. You have less Fisheye curvature this way to correct.
Once you have the De-Fished the images go to Edit, then Auto-Align Layers. Next use Auto-Blend layers for the final image. If shooting hand-held and you have some white areas around the edges you can select those areas and use “content – aware fill” to let Photoshop fill in those areas or crop in to eliminate them. The Featured Image is 5 landscape images panorama aligned & blended in Photoshop.
Making 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.
Plainsboro Preserve Lake McCormack Panoramas
Posted on November 11, 2021
It was a nice day yesterday so we went to the Audubon Plainsboro Preserve to take a walk and get some fresh air. I was traveling light and only took my Olympus OM-D mkI with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens. There was hardly anyone there so I was shooting some landscape images along our walk. There was still a few colorful Fall trees but most of the trees were bare along the path. As we were passing a short trail that lead down to a nice view of Lake McCormack I decided to shoot a couple of multi-image panoramas of the Lake. The Featured Image is made from 12 handheld horizontal images. Then I shot 10 vertical images for a higher panorama view of Lake McCormack. I have found that when using a m43 camera you need to overlap the images more than a Full Frame Camera. When I got home I started to work on my images for the panoramas. First I had to De-Fisheye the look of all of the images before I could use them to blend in the Final Panoramas. I just made an action to run & de-fisheye each image in the series. In Photoshop going to the Filter command at the top, then choosing Adaptive Wide Angle Filter that will usually correct the Fisheye look of your images. You also have to enter the Focal length of your fisheye lens before you use the filter. But this filter is set-up for Full Frame Cameras. So I entered 15mm which is the equivalent Field of View of my 7.5 mm lens on the m43 Olympus, basically 2x with the Olympus. Then I loaded the de-fished images into a Layered Photoshop file and selected all the layers. Then on the top commands go to Layer and choose Align, then merge Layers to complete the blending of the images.
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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