Ultrawide and small options?

[windmillgolfer]

A flexible combo is the Olympus 8mm Fisheye on an Olympus body that can defish incamera. On my EM1.3 four views can be achieved: fisheye, 5.5/7 and 9mm. It is not a big lens but weighs more than the Samyang and is slightly longer but you get AF and f1.8.

Not sure which other bodies can defish, but believe the OM1 can. The defishing can also be done in PP on the .ORF file using Workspace, so you still have the ORF, the incamera defished views are saved as JPEGs. Starting with the link below, each of the 4 views can be seen.

https://flic.kr/p/2o9oKC4

At last a suggestion that answers what the OP asked for, fisheye options. I second this suggestion, I like the 8mm FE Pro more that I would have ever imagined. A fantastic lens worthy of its Pro designation.

SIDE NOTE: I favor the fisheye look over UWA rectilinear 80% of the time. Fisheye maintains proportions but distorts straight lines, whereas UWA rectilinear maintains straight lines but distorts proportions. Pick your poison. Fisheye maintains the feel of natural vision, Rectilinear pushes everything far away, both need much consideration in framing and selecting the subject, neither is best in all situations. It highly depends on the subject. In a urban setting, I'd probably favor Rectilinear and in a nature setting FF-Fisheye. This is where I like having fisheye as my primary and the option to defish in camera, although I tend to defish in post when the image warrants it or a partial defish (Panini projection for e.g.) is the best balance. Of course defishing isn't the best option if rectilinearity is always desirable, then best to get a rectilinear lens and get the extra pixels in those stretched outer regions for a little more definition (i.e. stretched areas aren't digitally interpolated from a limited number of pixels, but rather optically distorted). Rectilinear is by far the most common choice as seen in this post, but fisheye also worthy of consideration. I hesitated greatly before ordering the 8mm FE Pro (the most expensive lens in my stable by far) and not the Laowa 6mm, but have absolutely no regret, it was the right choice for me and highly recommend it.

I have the Pan 8-18mm too but it hasn’t been out much since getting the Oly 8mm, though I much prefer the Pan G9, or GX8, to the EM1.3.

--
Stuart
Member of LSAPS - Lytham St Annes Photographic Society
Latest uploads http://www.flickr.com/photos/dieselgolfer/
G9 images

Panasonic G9

Nirvana for me. A very special offer proved irresistible.Used mostly with 100-400mm for wildlife, also Astro with 8-18mm.

www.flickr.com

G80 images https://www.flickr.com/photos/dieselgolfer/albums/72157669344521949
FZ330 images https://www.flickr.com/photos/dieselgolfer/albums/72157659823425652
TZ60 images https://www.flickr.com/photos/dieselgolfer/albums/72157642261079494
PL 100-400mm https://www.flickr.com/photos/dieselgolfer/albums/72157677833632831
Panoramas https://www.flickr.com/photos/dieselgolfer/albums/72157651603418606
UltraWide https://www.flickr.com/photos/dieselgolfer/albums/72157646076479907

 

[dhhddre]

Those are gorgeous shots!

I guess I'll keep the 7.5mm and learn + experiment with fisheye to cylindrical, I like that look.

Thanks -)

You can do all sorts of defishing with freeware tools but it tends to be a bit overcomplicated for simple tasks like this. I use the non-free but ludicrously simple Fisheye-Hemi, which performs only one task but does it very well, Unfortunately the company behind it (Imadio) seems to have vanished without trace, so it's no longer an option and I'm afraid I haven't researched available alternatives so it's up to you.

There's more than one "cylindrical" projection but Fisheye-Hemi uses "Panini" projection to create the images I posted. Different projections suit some images better than others but Panini works best for the kind of superwide images I tend to make. It's also great if there are people or circular objects near the edges/corners. The camera needs to be level on both axes for best conversion, then crop as needed after conversion.

I have scouted around and the choice for fisheye to panini (or other cylindrical) is rather limited (Hugin and related panorama tools seems to be the only one, but they're a bit impractical when starting from a single image).

Fisheye-Hemi seems to exist only on warez and other illegal downloads websites... If worse comes to worst, I'll code it myself, I like the look in your shots

 

[John Bean (UK)]

Fisheye-Hemi seems to exist only on warez and other illegal downloads websites... If worse comes to worst, I'll code it myself, I like the look in your shots

Lots of legit "free downloads" of the trial versions are available that work fine for test purposes but can't now be registered so will have prominent watermarking on the output. I suggest you try out one of those on your existing images to see what the output looks like. The trial version works forever.

Hugin does work on single images, it's just a pain to set up. It thinks it's making a pano but it doesn't care there's only one image to stitch and does the necessary defishing as specified. I can't recommend it but you can persuade it to do the job... eventually.