The 10.5 mm Fish-eye

Okay, I have been playing around with Nikon's 10.5 mm fish-eye on the D70
for a few days now. My intention is to eventually use this lens to take
instructional photos inside the airplane, but meanwhile I have been
experimenting with interior shots and some scenics.

The worst problem I have had is learning to keep my own fingers out of the
picture.

The lens seems to work very well as an extreme wide angle or even a
panoramic. There is some noticeable vignetting at the smallest aperture, but
it is not terrible. It is probably easiest to remove the vignetting first
before doing any other post-processing.

Of course, being a fish-eye, there is a lot of barrel distortion. This is a
rectangular fish-eye, so it fills the whole sensor instead of making a round
spot, but the distortion is very evident nonetheless. Also, the lens greatly
exaggerates vertical perspective tilting.

Nikon Capture removes this distortion in one step. You can choose to either
keep a very wide angle view with some cropping or you can keep the whole
picture, but with an hourglass shape. In the latter case some items that are
not recognizable or are just lines on the edge of the picture suddenly take
on recognizable shape, as if the unadjusted photo contained more information
than is visible. This is important, because things that you thought were not
in the picture might suddenly become a noticeable distraction.

ImageAlign is available both standalone and as a PS plug-in. The interface
is identical either way. It allows you to correct out all the barrel
distortion -- or even go past a complete correction if you wish. Skew and
tilt sliders allow correction of all kinds of perspective errors. I find
that the order in which you use these controls makes a big difference in how
effective the other sliders are. You can leave the hourglass shape or zoom
into a crop to achieve an effect like Nikon Capture. Overall, ImageAlign is
far more versatile, but Nikon Capture's one click correction is very nice.
Capture also allows you to choose a background color to fill the hourglass
sections, which can be very handy if you plan to knock the image out of its
background.

It would be interesting to try to stitch a few fish-eye shots together to
make a huge panorama. It would take some doing and a lot of work, probably
with ImageAlign, but it might be possible.

A third adjustment tool is Pano Tools, which is free. I have not tried it,
but will probably get around to it one of these days.

--
Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor
Port Orchard, WA


Ne Obliviscaris

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
news:ZtOdncElZ-c6zGrcRVn-

Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor

And so modest.

"Stu Dapples" wrote in message
...

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
news:ZtOdncElZ-c6zGrcRVn-

Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor

And so modest.

It is a joke, son. If I was really world famous, I wouldn't have to say so,
eh? In fact, if I was really world famous, I would have to stop calling
myself that because it would not be funny any more.

It is my way of poking a little fun at so many of the roadside attractions
of my youth, where you would see hundreds of billboards saying "World Famous
Ball of Twine" and like that.

It is also a little self-deprecatory. After all, when I started calling
myself "world famous" my sister in law lived in France. She knew me,
therefore I was world famous, right?

Besides, anyone who posts on USENET is world famous. :-) Your posts are read
by people all over the world. Therefore you are "World Famous Photographer,
Stu Dapples." You may call yourself that from now on.

And, last of all, I am a great admirer of P.T. Barnum. It is my way of
honoring him. starting to giggle uncontrollably now

"C J Campbell" writes:

Okay, I have been playing around with Nikon's 10.5 mm fish-eye on the D70
for a few days now. My intention is to eventually use this lens to take
instructional photos inside the airplane, but meanwhile I have been
experimenting with interior shots and some scenics.

The worst problem I have had is learning to keep my own fingers out of the
picture.

The lens seems to work very well as an extreme wide angle or even a
panoramic. There is some noticeable vignetting at the smallest aperture, but
it is not terrible. It is probably easiest to remove the vignetting first
before doing any other post-processing.

Of course, being a fish-eye, there is a lot of barrel distortion. This is a
rectangular fish-eye, so it fills the whole sensor instead of making a round
spot, but the distortion is very evident nonetheless. Also, the lens greatly
exaggerates vertical perspective tilting.

Has anybody figured out what focal length one would need in a
rectilinear lens to give the same angle of view of the 10.5 corrected
to rectilinear and cropped to a rectangular image? That is, what does
the extra work of correcting buy you relative to the Nikon or Sigma
12mm-24mm zooms? (Other than, presumably, less corner falloff).
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

C J Campbell wrote:
"Stu Dapples" wrote in message
...

"C J Campbell" wrote in
message news:ZtOdncElZ-c6zGrcRVn-

Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor

And so modest.

It is a joke, son. If I was really world famous, I wouldn't have to
say so, eh? In fact, if I was really world famous, I would have to
stop calling myself that because it would not be funny any more.

It is my way of poking a little fun at so many of the roadside
attractions of my youth, where you would see hundreds of billboards
saying "World Famous Ball of Twine" and like that.

It is also a little self-deprecatory. After all, when I started
calling myself "world famous" my sister in law lived in France. She
knew me, therefore I was world famous, right?

Besides, anyone who posts on USENET is world famous. :-) Your posts
are read by people all over the world. Therefore you are "World
Famous Photographer, Stu Dapples." You may call yourself that from
now on.

And, last of all, I am a great admirer of P.T. Barnum. It is my way of
honoring him. starting to giggle uncontrollably now


Owe shewt. Here I was imagining C.J. Campbell, trainer of airline
marksmen, two down and xx?? to go ...


--
--
Frank ess

"Because of the Swiss Cheese nature of everyone's life experience and
education, the Whoosh Bird can drop a load on anyone's head, without
warning." —Albrecht Einstein

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Has anybody figured out what focal length one would need in a
rectilinear lens to give the same angle of view of the 10.5 corrected
to rectilinear and cropped to a rectangular image? That is, what does
the extra work of correcting buy you relative to the Nikon or Sigma
12mm-24mm zooms? (Other than, presumably, less corner falloff).

Well, I don't know the answer to that, but one thing you *lose* is some
quality. Converting to the rectilinear projection involves stretching
the image, and thus interpolating it.

Plus, since you're cropping, the framing you see is far from what you'll
end up with.

A fisheye is really best used as a fisheye.

--
Jeremy |

C J Campbell wrote:

It is a joke, son. If I was really world famous, I wouldn't have to say so,
eh? In fact, if I was really world famous, I would have to stop calling
myself that because it would not be funny any more.

It is my way of poking a little fun at so many of the roadside attractions
of my youth, where you would see hundreds of billboards saying "World Famous
Ball of Twine" and like that.

It is also a little self-deprecatory. After all, when I started calling
myself "world famous" my sister in law lived in France. She knew me,
therefore I was world famous, right?

Besides, anyone who posts on USENET is world famous. :-) Your posts are read
by people all over the world. Therefore you are "World Famous Photographer,
Stu Dapples." You may call yourself that from now on.


Er, we* don't know if Mr. "Dapples" is a photographer at all. And
'famous' does imply some continuity in order to be known..... s

But your response was the most patient and kindly I have read to date.

* well, not the Royal We, nor editorial; really, I just haven't seen
any photos. He may be superb, World-renowned in his own right outside of
usenet, etc. etc., hedge, hedge, hedge.

--
John McWilliams

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Stu Dapples" wrote in message
...

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
news:ZtOdncElZ-c6zGrcRVn-

Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor

And so modest.

It is a joke, son. If I was really world famous, I wouldn't have to say
so,
eh? In fact, if I was really world famous, I would have to stop calling

Yawn. So boring.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor

And so modest.

It is a joke, son.

It deeply gratifies me that I am not, and cannot possibly be, your son.
I set rather higher standards when I selected my parents.