skateboarding shoot/fisheye lens questions

<p>Hello All<br>

I have a project coming up involving skateboarding, not my typical thing, but I'm always down to try new things. I have a Canon 40D, so with the cropped body all my lenses will be magnified 1.6x.<br>

I am just trying to determine if I can get the true fish eye look w/this body and a typical fisheye lens? I don't own one, I'm looking to rent one within a range of size 4.5mm to 15mm, with the intent of the smaller focal length being more distorted/circular effects, I guess?<br>

Does anyone have any advice for this situation? I am not sure how dramatic the shots (in other words, distorted) need to be yet....Does anyone have any websites or examples of skating shots done with a fisheye on a cropped body? Or just any advice would be helpful. Thanks for any input...</p>

<p>There aren't too many options for fisheyes on crop sensor cameras. The effect is dramatically reduced and you probably won't get what you're looking for. Sigma makes a 10mm fisheye designed for crop cameras, and will give you an effect similar to that of 15-16mm fisheye. And Tokina has a 10-17mm zoom fisheye that, at full zoom, appears much more like a wide angle. If you get into circular fisheyes, you'll see something you may or may not be looking for. <br>

Here's an example of the 10mm on a crop:

And the 4.5mm circular: http://www.benbailey.net/index.php/2008/08/14/review-sigma-45mm-circular-fisheye/</p>

<p> <br>

<em><strong>"I am just trying to determine if I can get the true fish eye look w/this body and a typical fisheye lens?"</strong></em><br>

You will <em><strong>not </strong></em>get a fisheye view using your 40D using a lens designed for a 135 format camera (i.e. full frame), e.g. the Canon 15mm fisheye. <br>

<br>

FYI:<br>

<br>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00RTmp">http://www.photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00RTmp</a></p>

<p > </p>

<p >WW</p>

 

<p>I use the Tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom. At 16-17mm it works as a fisheye for full frame cameras, and at 10mm it works as a fisheye on my 40D. It's quite a good, sharp lens, and is probably the lowest cost option for a fisheye on crop cameras.</p>

<p>You absolutely will get a fisheye look, just not quite as wide as the lens would be on a full frame lens. This example clearly shows the distorted baseline, though I'm not that close to the players, so they don't look all that unusual. FYI, this is a zenitar 16mm fisheye...which is manual focus and not all that sharp compared to the sigmas and canons. This was more an experiment by me than anything.</p><div></div>

<p><em><strong>"to determine if I can get the true fish eye look" </strong></em><br>

&<br>

"You will <strong><em>not </em></strong>get a fisheye view using your 40D using a lens designed for a 135 format camera (i.e. full frame), e.g. the Canon 15mm fisheye."<br>

&<br>

"You absolutely will get a fisheye look"<br>

<br>

*** <br>

<br>

I guess definitions, or at least parameters are required, a "fisheye view" is a "fisheye view".<br>

<br>

There is distortion in the baseline of the basketball shot. <br>

<br>

Note that the distortion is accentuated because of the camera viewpoint, which is skew to the baseline and also the camera's elevation and slight upward angle, relative to the horizontal plane. <br>

<br>

I term this distortion: Barrel Distortion.<br>

<br>

A "fisheye view" is determined by the view (angle of the view), hence my answer was literal and specific as I was answering "a true fisheye look"<br>

<br>

So it depends what you want, and how severe you want it, remembering that the distortion can be "enhanced" by judicious use of the camera angle relative to the subject.<br>

<br>

WW</p>

<div></div>

<p>William's example gives you a good idea of the amount of 'distorted' image you lose with the 40d. So if you wanted to get the look of a 16mm fisheye as it appears on a full frame camera, then you'd need a 10mm fisheye. As Jim said, the Tokina has a range of 10-17, so you'd have room to work with depending on how much of the 'fisheye' look you wanted. I wouldn't suggest the zenitar that I used because of the manual focus...not ideal for sports.</p>

<p>thank you to everyone who contributed. I will have to rethink how I want to go about this as well as how I'll come up w/some money to get a full frame camera :)</p>

<p>Brittany, you've been misled by some of the well-intended but ill-informed comments here. A fisheye on a crop-sensor digital camera is perfectly capable of delivering the effects you've asked about. Check Flickr, using the image tag search feature. You'll find dozens, even hundreds, of photos of skateboarders and inline skaters taken using crop sensor cameras and various fisheye lenses.</p>

<p>And of course there's distortion - it's a fisheye lens! That's the whole point of using that lens.</p>

<p>Autofocus is almost irrelevant to this type of photography, so don't worry about the differences between manual and AF lenses. Pre-focus on the zone of peak action. Stopping down for depth of field will help minimize problems with minor focus error. Study the techniques, and wherever possible the exposure data (see EXIF data) attached to most photos on Flickr.</p>

<p>The trick is getting close enough to get the desired "in your face" effect of the skater seeming to crowd right into the frame. To get this effect you have to be verrry close. You'll need to practice and coordinate your position with the skaters to minimize the risk of accidents. But if you never get kicked in the head, you're probably not close enough.</p>

<p>Lex is right. You don't need a full frame camera for great fisheye photos. You just need a fisheye lens that's designed for crop frame cameras.</p>

<p>Nikon makes one for their cameras (10.5mm). Sigma makes a couple (4.5 [circular] and 10mm), and the Tokina zoom version I use works great at 10mm. With the Tokina the distortion effect diminishes as you zoom out, but so does the field of view. Personally, I like the effect at 10mm the best. If you change to full frame and use a 16-17mm lens you end up with the same field of view and distortion, so there is not much of an advantage (as far as fisheye images) to doing so.</p>

<p>Full frame camera (5D) would be $2000, and a cheap fisheye (Zenitar) would be $200, or a good fisheye (Canon) would be $600. So figure $2200 to $2800, or somewhat less for used. Or you could buy the Tokina 10-17 for $550 for the 40D, and get essentially the same results.</p>

 

<p><em><strong>"Brittany, you've been misled by some of the well-intended but ill-informed comments here."</strong></em><br /><br />I am not sure: but if directed toward my commentary - mine was well intended, and IMO, fully informed.<br /><br /><em><strong>"A fisheye on a crop-sensor digital camera is perfectly capable of delivering the effects you've asked about."</strong></em><br /><br />I agree, and I thought I made that clear, and methods as to how to achieve that in my second post:</p>

<p><em>" Note that the distortion is accentuated because of the camera viewpoint, which is skew to the baseline and also the camera's elevation and slight upward angle, relative to the horizontal plane. <br /></em><br>

<em>"So it depends what you want, and how severe you want it, remembering that the distortion can be "enhanced" by judicious use of the camera angle relative to the subject."<br /></em><br>

<br />BOTTOM LINE:<br>

<br />You do not need to get a new camera, there are many cheaper options for a fisheye effect, they are also described by Lex and Jim.<br /><br>

I am absolultely in concert with this forum not being a debating ground, but, an answer would be appreciated, and thereafter deletion of this discourse or parst of it, if you think appropriate: as the reason for this post is I am quite perplexed / puzzled by Lex's comments I have quoted and IMO I put quite a lot of effort especially, into this particular forum.<br>

<br />Thanks<br>

<br />WW</p>

<p><strong>thank you to everyone who contributed. I will have to rethink how I want to go about this as well as how I'll come up w/some money to get a full frame camera :)</strong></p>

<p>I woldn't suggest that drastic of a course, you just need to compare what is available. If there is a good camera store nearby, you can see if they carry any fisheye lenses of various aperture and try them out, see how they look on your camera body while in store, most places will allow that. I've never tried the 'circular' fisheyes that give the round pictures...I've had the manual focus Zenitar for about 3 years, and it is pretty good for $130 I paid for it, but I would prefer auto focus just because it is hard to always know where the subjects will be, and if you are shooting in low light, can be pretty tough. One thing that might help is to mark a spot on the skateboard ramps, and ask the skateboarders to aim for that point when doing their tricks, then you can be pre-focused for it and should get good results every time. </p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

William,

 

I would say that "a picture is worth a thousands words" is certainly true in the two photos you showed. Brittany can clearly see how much of the fisheye effect is lost by cropping. In the cropped version the book shelves in the upper right look barely fisheyed at all but in the full frame version the now included uncropped bookshelves in the top right leave no doubt that a fisheye lens was used since there is more of that radical fisheye look.

<p>Links to a few skateboarding photos on Flicker taken with fisheyes (not mine). Follow the tags and you can find a bunch more like 'em:</p>

<p><a href=" D70s DX sensor dSLR with 10.5mm Nikkor fisheye (no circular frame with vignetting effect).</a> This photo, incidentally, shows that even the D70, which some dismiss as unworthy of action photography, can still cut the mustard in the right hands.</p>

<p>No data listed on <a href=" one</a> , but photographer's data elsewhere indicates he uses a Nikon D3 among other cameras. Another conventional crop, no circular-with-vignetting-effect, but has that in-your-face immediacy of closeup action photography with a fisheye lens.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rory_torrance/3241784413/"><strong>This</strong> </a> is one of the few skateboarding photos I found on Flickr that retains the circular-with-vignetting-effect. No EXIF data listed but it has the appearance of a fisheye adapter on a P&S digicam. I've used these. The effect is okay and the price is reasonable for experimenting, but the quality isn't very good especially at the edges.</p>

<p>If you check the various clusters on Flickr under the "skateboard," "fisheye" and other cluster names you'll find hundreds of samples. Very, very few retain the circular-with-vignetting-effect of a "true fisheye", so the effect is largely irrelevant to most of this style of action photography. Even with the cropped edges the immediacy of the fisheye effect is very apparent and the dramatically distorted receding lines can be seen. Nothing significant is lost by using a fisheye on a cropped sensor dSLR so there's no need to worry about the expense of a full frame dSLR for now.</p>

<p>Ask questions on Flickr and elsewhere you see skateboarding photos you admire. A lot of photographers are happy to share their experiences about what works and doesn't work for them, not just equipment but technique and how to interact with the athletes to get the best results. Since you must work physically very close to the action to get these results it's important to communicate. You might also consider using a protective filter over the lens (ask other photographers engaged in this activity for their advice) to minimize the risk of lens damage from debris being kicked up and even direct clashes from slips. I'd wear safety glasses or some sort of strong eyewear too, so be sure you have enough eye relief to see the viewfinder if you do wear glasses.</p>