On Safari with a Fisheye Lens

Adam Bannister December 26, 2011 3

I must start off by wishing you all a Merry Christmas. I trust that you had a wonderful day and that you were surrounded by friends, family and loved ones. As a wildlife photography fanatic I am continually seeking new ways to shoot and portray images in nature. One quite exciting idea that I have been introduced to recently is the power of the Fish Eye Lens. An exceptionally wide open lens allowing the photographer to capture a large amount of scenery in the shot. This opens up an entire new ball game in terms of creativity. It enables one to take a scene which has been shot numerous times and put a fresh twist on the whole thing.

A fisheye lens is a wide-angle lens that takes in a broad, panoramic and hemispherical image. Originally developed for use in meteorology to study cloud formation and called “whole-sky lenses”, fisheye lenses quickly became popular in general photography for their unique, distorted appearance. They are often used by photographers shooting broad landscapes to suggest the curve of the Earth.

Although I do not have a Fish Eye Lens for myself, a guest I had a short while ago took these photographs whilst on Safari at Londolozi Game Reserve. You can see how this Lens, if used correctly, deserves a place in every serious photographers camera bag.

It's great how a Fish Eye Lens shows how much fun it is to cross the Causeway, one of the passageways to the beautiful northern parts of Londolozi.

A new perspective is captured. Here the Lens is used to effectively show the openness and freedom allowed through driving in an open vehicle with no roof on Safari

The view from the Sycamore Fig overlooking the Sand River

A walk in the wild

The Fish Eye Lens is best used to show space! It works well to put something of a known size to show perspective. The people walking in this picture work perfectly for this job.