Title • bent out of shape

I mentioned yesterday that I didn't think that I had any more decent shots to put up from last weekend, but I had another look through them last night and think there are two that I'll probably put up this weekend.

In the meanwhile though, here's something that's a bit different.

I haven't put up the EXIF data as I thought you might like to speculate as to how this was done. I will tell you that it was taken with my 20D, and I'll put up the rest of the data later this evening.

OK, I guess it's fairly obvious that it's a fisheye ;-)

I've wanted one since Bob started posting images taken with his Canon 15mm fisheye, but I couldn't afford one. Nor could I afford the 8mm Sigma. And then I came across the Peleng 8mm f/3.5 fisheye, which is considerably cheaper. On a 35mm camera, or a full-frame DSLR it would produce a circular image, On my 20D (with the 1.6 crop) the corners are cut off. I've used LensFix to straighten the image up enough to fill the corners but it's still a pretty dramatic effect. I would guess (with the 1.6 crop and correction) that it's probably the equivalent of a 14mm lens on a 35mm camera. It isn't a stunningly sharp lens, the colours are a bit off, it's horribly prone to flare and the images are quite flat, but it's cheap and it's fun :-)

One interesting point, and well worth considering if you ever get a chance to use a fisheye: don't walk while looking through the viewfinder as objects that look to be several feet away are probably only a few inches in front of you. I nearly fell over a fence this afternoon on the assumption that it was a good yard or two away – which would have been a little embarrassing. Also, if you suffer from vertigo, looking through the viewfinder while pointing the camera downwards over a drop is quite disconcerting ;-)