Photo Fun: Fish Eye lens
A couple years ago I invested in a few of those fun plastic Lomography cameras.
I own an Action Sampler multiple lens camera, a Colorsplash with gel films for the flash, and a camera with a built in fish eye lens.
Of the three, the fish eye has been my least favorite. With that big bubble lens skewing the view, it felt damn near impossible to take a good photo with the thing.
Better photographers than I understand the proportions of this extremely wide angle lens, but for me I felt like I was fighting with it.
So I gave up.
Recently, I was cleaning out my gear and I noticed that the fish eye camera had a roll of film loaded, and the counter showed 1. Turns out I hadn’t even used a single frame of the roll.
I tossed the camera in my bag for New Year’s Eve weekend. I knew we’d be staying near Sausalito and there’s plenty of photo opportunities up there.
Well, I forgot I had that fish eye in my bag until the day we were driving home when I had a flash of inspiration. As we drove over the bridge, I held the camera out the window and on the roof of the car, tilted it up slightly, and snapped away.
Sometimes serendipity is the best friend of the photographer.
Other than straightening the horizon, this photo is straight off the camera.
Suddenly I like that fish eye camera a whole lot more.
(click to see a larger size)
