5 Ways to Get Creative with a Fisheye Lens

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5 Ways to Get Creative with a Fisheye Lens

A fisheye lens is easily one of the best ways to get creative and have a blast with photography. As far as lenses go, a fisheye is relatively cheap (around $650) making them accessible to a wide group of photogs. It's important to know what a fisheye lens is, where it came from, and where the uses of a fisheye lens begin and end.

Originally used for meteorology to study the sky and cloud formations, fisheye's were originally called "whole-sky lenses." These lenses quickly became popular in the general photography field because of their fun and unique uses, and of course their incredibly distorted lines. They can be used for many different purposes, both professional and for fun (but mostly for fun). Here are 5 creative ways to use a fisheye lens that you can implement immediately…

1. Radial Blur

Shooting a wedding reception with a fisheye lens can be an absolute blast. These receptions are usually in low light and are a challenge to get great images out of. When I'm shooting a reception, I get right in the middle of the dance floor and just shoot away. To get this radial-blur effect, simply slow down your shutter speed to around 1/25th of a second. Next, you need to spin the camera 90 degrees counter clockwise. To do this, simply cradle the lens with your left hand while using your right hand to pivot the camera body around. Not every image is going to come out, but you can almost always walk away with a few keepers.

2. Exaggerate the Curvature of the Earth

One thing to note when using a fisheye lens is this: The further you move an object or line to the edge of the frame, the more distorted it becomes. If you place the horizon in the middle of the frame, it will be perfectly straight across the entire image. The exaggerate this distortion, place the horizon dangerously close to the top of the frame. Just be care...

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