Recently, I have been shooting HDR 360˚ Panorama images using a beautiful little Rokinon 7.5mm Fisheye on my Olympus M4/3 (MFT) camera. In my view, this lens is nothing short of amazing.
This kind of photography is not new to me. I’ve been doing it for years with other lenses and VR heads. However, the use of a very compact Rokinon 7.5mm fisheye lens mounted to an M4/3rds camera and the well-conceived Nodal Ninja VR head has made the whole process much easier than the comparatively cumbersome DSLR 360 system I had been using previously. This rig becomes a pretty compact and very workable unit.
The lens has the typical barrel distortion that is associated with fisheye lenses. But that is exactly what is required for great 360 and extremely wide perspectives.
What surprises me most about the Rokinon lens is its sharpness and corner-to-corner brightness. Many similar lenses tend to produce dark corners where the image circle begins to interfere with the frame of the sensor. And while the lens is completely manual, it is amazingly easy to use. The most amazing thing is its price. For what it is capable of doing, it is an amazingly affordable addition for anyone wanting extreme wide lens effects. The depth of field on a fisheye lens is tremendous. Everything from a few inches in front of the lens to infinity seems sharp even at wider apertures. Depending on the subject, my tendency is to shoot in the middle of the aperture range while backing slightly off from infinity focus.
This combination of small camera, lens and VR head is very easy and somewhat addictive. By addictive, I mean it is a ton of fun to use.
The Nodal Ninja VR head can be rotated in detents that will equally space the exposures for perfect overlaps depending on the lens used and operator setup. For most of these images, I used 8 rotational points at 45˚ each. Once the rig has been set up and leveled, it only takes a few minutes to complete a full 360˚ image. With a fast firing camera, the HDR exposures can be quickly produced at each detent.
All images shown have been processed through Photomatix Pro and Photoshop.
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Fisheye lenses have great potential. They are useful for creating such things as QuickTime VR, 360˚ panoramas, micro planets and many other applications. I hope to explore a few more of those possibilities in the next few weeks as I get to know the characteristics of this interesting lens as well as its slightly bigger sibling the Rokinon 8 mm which is made specifically for use APS size sensors.
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