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Showing posts with the label wide angle

A Wide Angle Converter Lens

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I 've written a few times about a long-discontinued classic Fuji compact camera that I finally found a few months ago after a years-long search but I thought I'd write about it again.  This little camera is a really outstanding compact camera but I'm always looking for ways to improve whatever gear I use.  In this case, getting a slightly wider view would be nice for those occasional times when you need a slightly wider view.   I've had a few different wide angle converter lenses on hand for many years...  perhaps decades, actually!  I dug them out to give each of them a try.  I think the smallest one I own has worked best.  Below, you can see this converter lens sitting next to the Fuji X30 camera. In this photo below, the wide angle converter lens is mounted on the front of the Fuji X30...   Below, you can see the difference between the views when using the camera without the converter lens (inside the red box) and when using the camera with the converter lens (the w

Wide vs Telephoto

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I was out shooting some photos at around 5:30 in the morning as I usually do while we are at the lake house... covered completely in clothing from head to toe yet still getting eaten by millions of flying insects. Even though I hate dealing with all the biting insects, I'm always hoping to capture a good photo of some early morning wildlife while the lake is calm and the sun is low creating a warmer, softer light. That rarely happens but I can always hope for the best.  On this particular morning, I was attempting to compose a landscape shot that I've shot far too many times already but I prepared to shoot it again anyway.  As I was looking through the viewfinder, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be the moon at the top edge of the frame in the center. I pulled my head away from the camera... looked up... sure enough, the moon was still rather high in the sky.  I snapped a quick photo of the landscape and then switched gears.  I grabbed my other camera that has a b

Fisheye Lenses

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Lunch at the top of the Tower of the Americas.  This is a situation where the fisheye distortion actually works... not only was I able to get all of us in the frame but I got the rest of Earth in there too! There are all sorts of different lenses available today. There are long telephoto lenses, medium telephoto lenses, standard telephoto, wide telephoto, prime, macro, tilt-shift, wide angle, fisheye, portrait, and all sorts of additional specialty lenses. The list goes on and on... Lately I've been doing a lot of writing about long telephoto lenses for shooting photos of wildlife but I've been wanting to write about a completely different type of lens since arriving back from our long journey to San Antonio. This is a lens which provides a bit of a strange view and one which I had just used for the first time on this trip. For certain applications, this lens really was a great choice... the fisheye lens. I've wanted a fisheye lens for years. It really is an od