Videography can be an expensive game to get into it after you've added up the cost of the best camera for video, the best cine lenses, and all the accessories you might need. However, smartphone lenses are getting so good these days you no longer have to spend an insane amount of money to invest in a kit that will help you shoot professional-looking films. It was easy to de-squeeze the footage in Final Cut Pro (there is a handy video on YouTube that shows you exactly how to convert it) and it really does make everything you shoot with it look that little more pro. As you can see from the images, the fisheye lens creates massive distortion at the edge of the frame. Clip-on lenses attach to your phone’s camera lens and allow you to take better photos in a variety of situations.

Phone Camera Lenses: The Complete Guide | StableCamera Phone Camera Lenses: The Complete Guide | StableCamera

Circular Fisheye lenses were the very first of this kind of lenses to be manufactured. For this type of Fisheye Lens, the image circle is inscribed in the image sensor. Fisheye lenses in photography are dependent purely on your need for the most mega wide view of the world. Many look down on fisheye lenses merely as toys to help photographers and videographers indulge in creating different images purely for the sake of being different without any real utility. In the 90’s the fisheye lens became a staple in the skateboarding world and became synonymous with everything around skating and skate culture. Admittedly it has never really broken free from this association, such was the importance of its use in the skate counter culture scene. Opinion is divided around fish eye lenses, but they do have many uses, and depending on your needs or ability to use it creatively, may be a worthwhile investment. A Fisheye Lens is an angle lens that produces a visually distorted effect which creates an ultra-wide panoramic view.

Unboxing the Death Lens Fisheye

Like all things, this lens is simply a tool and when applied to the right situation can produce truly incredible images. Whether you’ve been immersed in photography for a long period of time or just starting out and curious to know the wide range of optics available to stylise your photography, the fish eye lens may be just the thing you’re looking for. Typically they clip on to the edge of the phone and sit over your existing iPhone camera lens. Different adapters are available for different needs and are available for different phones. Lens adapters are available for your mobile phone to give you that ultra wide angle lens on the go. Fisheye lenses were originally created to help meteorologists analyse and observe the ever-changing weather. Over time, creative photographers began to use it to create desired effects in their work. The lens’s quality is paramount when determining the best fisheye lens. We will examine the lens’s build and fit on the iPhone’s camera. This factor also ties into durability, as the lens must be resilient to dust and scratches.

Complete Guide to the Fisheye Lens And How It Works Complete Guide to the Fisheye Lens And How It Works

We test lenses using both real-world sample images and lab tests. Our lab tests are carried out scientifically in controlled conditions using the Imatest testing suite, which consists of custom charts and analysis software that measures resolution in line widths/picture height, a measurement widely used in lens and camera testing. We find the combination of lab and real-world testing works best, as each reveals different qualities and characteristics. Phone lenses are not able to be lab-tested in the same lens but we do put them through some rigorous test shoots.Think of it like wide angle lenses and zoom lenses. If you want to see the entire scene, you want to see like a fish, if you want to zoom in on a specific detail, you need to laser in on your target like a bird of prey. Fisheye lens view from the front (Image credit: Beth Nicholls) Moment Fisheye Lens: Build and Handling If you're looking to expand your gear and enhance the possibilities of what your smartphone can achieve, then it's definitely worth investing in some smartphone lenses from Moment as high-quality assets for your daily photography, and even for planned and studio/location shoots too. These lenses typically have a field of view (FOV) of around 120 degrees, which is about twice as wide as the average phone camera’s FOV of 60 degrees. More specifically, fisheye lenses make excellent travel lenses as they allow for ultra wide images of landscapes and can focus short distances to still allow you to fill the frame with detail shots. They are also typically ‘fast’ lenses, which means they have wide apertures and can gather a lot of light. This makes them great for taking pictures indoors in places such as museums and churches.

Fisheye Lenses for iPhone in 2023 - Applavia 10 Best Fisheye Lenses for iPhone in 2023 - Applavia

One thing to keep in mind with wide-angle lenses is that they can make things appear further away than they actually are. Think of the eyes of predators vs the eyes of prey animals. Many fish have big, wide eyes on the sides of their heads, so they can see in all directions to watch out for things trying to eat them.

Put simply – it makes straight lines appear curved, so curved in fact that it can create an image that is a complete circle. It is popularly used for underwater videos and images, extreme sports, and astrophotography. Landscape photographers employ filters to alter exposure and colour of the scene. Typically these filters are either screwed on to the end of the lens or held in place by a filter holder, which allows plastic square filters to be placed in front of the lens. With fisheye lenses however, the glass is so big and bulbous that filters won’t fit on them.

Fisheye Effect on iPhone - SANDMARC How to Get the Fisheye Effect on iPhone - SANDMARC

For instance, an equisolid angle of a 15 mm full-frame fisheye will measure 147 degrees horizontally and 94 degrees vertically. I took the Death Lens out for a week as the only camera on me and really put it to the test in a variety of situations — from hanging with friends and getting pizza to biking and going to concerts. During testing, I considered the following factors:

What is a fisheye lens?

A fisheye lens has a wider field of view and a curved distortion, allowing you to capture more of the scene. We test lenses using a mix of both real-world sample images and lab tests. Our lab tests are carried out scientifically in controlled conditions using the Imatest testing suite, which consists of custom charts and analysis software that measures resolution in line widths/picture height, a measurement widely used in lens and camera testing. We find the combination of lab and real-world testing works best, as each reveals different qualities and characteristics.