Technique Tuesday: The Only Wide Angle Lens You’ll Ever Need!

Good Afternoon Everybody,

Just to bring you up to date, let me tell you what’s happening around here - it’s all good stuff.  Yesterday, I typed the first 2,200 words of my new book, “Make Your Lighting Exciting”.  I just started typing and the words started flowing – a very good thing for an author ;~) 

Anyway, the book in now on the “front burner” an I’m giving it TOP PRIORITY over everything else here at the studio, including daily posts to DPT.  If I’m going to finish this thing by the end of August, that’s how its’ going to have to be the next few months.  The first words I type each day will be for my book – no exceptions! 

Don’t worry, I’m not giving up on the blog for that time period but look for the blog posts to come later in the day.  I figure 2,000 words a day and I can have the book hammered out in no time.  Total words for my Captured By The Light book last year totaled about 65,000 words so you can see I’m on a “tear’ this time around.  Hey, they always say to write your second book first because you know what you’re doing ;~)

That’s the quick update from me today.  How about we get on with a super-cool Technique today.

The Only Wide Angle Lens You’ll Ever Need!

OK, not really but with what I’ve got to show you today you’ll be surprised to see what I pull off with my new Canon 8-15mm Fisheye lens.  The cool thing is that it has little to do with Fisheye photography.  Today it’s all about super- duper extreme wide angle lens photography.  How wide – how about 150 degrees rectilinearly corrected wide angle wonderfulness!  That makes the new Canon lens the new wide angle winner in that department.

OK, so you’re asking, “How in the world can I use a fisheye lens as a regular wide angle lens?”  It’s easy folks, Lightroom 4 and it’s built in lens correction feature. That’s the point of this week’s lesson. Today’s post answer’s the question of what the REAL “Field of View” is for a rectilinearly corrected fisheye image.  OK, I’ll let the “cat out of the box early here. 

Using the Canon 8-15mm fisheye on my Canon 5D Mark III full frame body, I will show you can achieve a true rectilinearly corrected image with a “Field of View” that ranges from 150 degrees down to a still super-wide 133 degrees depending on the zoom setting of the lens.  The studio image below is shot with the Canon fisheye at 14mm corrected in Lightroom showing a 140 degrees “Field of View”! Nothing else comes close to this wide angle feat!

Hopefully I’ve got your attention with this intro.  I’ve spent a lot of today developing and organizing the data and the images for this post.  Why not hit the PLAY button below and enjoy one of my favorite Technique Tuesdays ever.  OK, on slight word of caution – I did get little carried away on today’s tutorial and it does run a little long – about 34 minutes long.  But it’s still worth every minute of you time.  I think (and hope) you get a kick out of the video today.  Enjoy!!

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today.  I’ve still got to get my 2,000 words under my belt for today – yes, I gave DPT first billing today because I got so wrapped up into putting things together this morning so now I’ve got to get moving.  I’ll plan to see everybody here again real soon.

Adios for now,  David