Fisheye - landscape with flower

[Kim Pilegaard]

I recently acquired the Nikkor 10.5 mm f. 2.8 DX lens. I thought it would be interesting to experiment with landscape photos with plants in the foreground. Here is my first attempt from the Dovre mountains in Norway with cottongrass (Eriophorum scheuchzeri) in the foreground. The snow-covered mountain a little to the right of the center is Snøhetta, once believed to be the highest mountain in Norway.

[elsa hoffmann]

Cold and windy? I like the mood in the image.
I miss my 10.5. One day I shall get a fisheye for the FF again!

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Successful use of very wide lenses for landscapes dictates a very careful positioning of the lens in relation to the main subject, usually something quite close to the camera. Often one cannot get close enough, it seems.

I think the present image would improve on a [much] closer approach to the Cottongrass heads. Also pay attention to the direction of light. These plants simply love to be done against the sun.

[pluton]

To echo Bjørn's comment:  light that delineates and separates the shapes of the plants from the background would be nice. 

[Kim Pilegaard]

Thanks for the constructive comments. I agree that some (sun)light on the plant in the foreground would have helped. The reason, I did not go even closer to the flower heads was that I wanted to have the flowers connected to the ground. It was still pretty close.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

The wider the lens, the closer one needs to approach in order to have the main subject (in foreground) depicted sufficiently large. Otherwise it just merges into the background, in particular when light contrasts are low.

[Les Olson]

I would like to see the point of view raised a little, so as to move the Cottongrass heads away from the line of the mountains, where I find them distracting.

[Kim Pilegaard]

Certainly, I have to refine the technique. An important issue is to make the flower stand out, which could be obtained by light or by a distant background. Because the lens is a fisheye, I have to keep the horizon near the middle of the frame in order not to get it unnaturally curved.

Here are two more pictures from the same trip. The first one is a an alpine bartsia (Bartsia alpina).

[Kim Pilegaard]

The second one is the seed head of a spring pasqueflower (Pulsatilla vernalis):

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Don't be too afraid of moving the fisheye lens more relative to the subject(s). Keeping everything dead centre makes for quite static compositions. While there is a definite place for these once in a while, more diversification services most subjects better.

There are software alternatives to "straighten" fisheye images in the processing work flow. Earlier I used various free-standing programs , now most of the heavy shifting is done directly in PhotoNinja.

[the solitaire]

As mentioned before, get close to your subject

DSC_3790 by Amy Lumi, on Flickr

Beautiful landscape however.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Fisheye lenses can be used in many different ways. Their output can be reprocessed to show alternate geometric projections. All is up to the photographer and the intended use of a given photo.

Many years ago I did an assignment for 'Nikon Pro Magazine' with a prototype of the 10.5 mm f/2.8 Nikkor. The images below are taken from the exact same vantage point but they are processed differently. Which one of them was was printed in the magazine?

(the plant is Ranunculus reptans, a small creeping amphibious species often found on shores of regulated lakes in the alpine zone)

[Kim Pilegaard]

Very nice pictures Bjørn!

 I guess it was the second one that went into print. Just because the first one, which I like much more, does not reveal that it is taken with a fisheye lens.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Your surmise is correct.

I put both up here so you can readily observe the huge variation in pictorial expression allowed by these lenses. There is no right nor wrong, just different rendering of a scene.