r-wos.org

Still learning how to use the fisheye lens that I adapted to my Reflex-Korelle. Well, not really learning how to use it, because it is super simple to use. More like learning what to use it for.

Apart from the horizon directly in the middle, and exactly one vertical line down the middle, the only other thing that keeps its shape with this lens are circles. So what more appropriate place to bring it, than the radar domes on Teufelsberg.

This worked pretty well, I especially like how the tower in the left side of the image managed to creep into the frame. Camera held parallel to the ground, but looking up quite a bit.

Same thing from the other direction. The darker left side is due to a shutter problem that I think I have fixed by now (fingers crossed).

The last picture shows the fish-eye effect a bit better. It’s not totally unusable for landscape photography I think, but it’s weird because one has to get so much closer to things than one would think. As soon as you’re like more than two meters away it all becomes a picture of nothing because things get so small so quickly.

I find that with a normal lens (like 75 mm in 6×6 medium format), you can pretty much just point it at something interesting and that will work out okay. That absolutely doesn’t work with this 30 mm lens. You need to actually move very very close. So it’s different, but it’s fun.

It also does remind me to upgrade the Reflex-Korelle’s viewfinder, because it’s very difficult to see anything more than the center of the image currently. Not a big problem with a normal lens, but with this one, the whole world is in the corners – would be nice to see that when taking the picture, not only when scanning.