I've owned UWA lenses for many years, OMZ 18/3.5, 17-35 for Canon, Oly 9-18, Laowa
7.5/2 and Panny 7-14 for µ4/3.
But they have soooo often not been wide enough. Familiar? For distant landscapes, my solution has long been to shoot a
series of overlapping shots to merge into a panorama. Some work well in PS, others, not so much - weird perspective.
Hugin takes care of that, but what a pain to use. I have to relearn the UI most times.
MikeL gave me the clue, with a Fisheye shot he had corrected.
The next step was finding the Imadio Fisheye-Hemi plugins for PS.
I've had a Panny 8/3.5 Fishy for almost 18 months. In that time, leaving out tests to see it worked, I've shot only 83
photos with it. I've carried it around (tiny, light) for many days of shooting without using it. And yet, when it's
right, there's no substitute.
When corrected using Fisheye-Hemi, the horizontal FoV is about 150º. With a 7 mm rectilinear lens, it's about 100º. BIG
difference!
I was reminded of this again in Capitol Gorge in Capitol Reef NP a couple of weeks ago. I wanted really wide shots, but
was pretty sure that stitched panos, done in my casual, hand held style, would be a big pain to process, if they worked
out at all. So I shot with the Fishy lens and corrected them to (close to) rectilinear in post.
Here's a big set of examples, starting in Capitol Gorge, and wandering to Bryce NP, Mendocino and Bhutan.
<cid:part1.83CFBE31.189DB036@gmail.com>
Three could be done easily with a pano merge, and I do have the shots for them. If I ever need high rez versions, I can
make them. But for the web or a book, these are perfect.
The Bhutanese farmhouse lunch shot I know wouldn't be done any other way. Perhaps the gorge shots could be done well
with a fancy pano head, that rotates around the lens center on a tripod. I'll never know. I was there to walk the gorge,
experience it, not spend most of limited time with good light on a few panos and hike only part of the gorge, carrying
an extra bunch of heavy gear..
Fishy Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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