Wide-Angle Lenses, Fisheye Lenses, and Panoramas

Many problems can be found in the design of wide-angle lenses with large apertures. First of all are aberrations. Distortion is common, and correcting and editing images becomes more and more difficult as the focal length decreases. So how do lens designers make a lens that will not distort a image nearly as much in the center as a wide angle lens may? Well, if you’ve ever seen a image taken from a doorbell camera, that is what is called a fisheye lens. It is distorted somewhat, but as long as you have a decent brand, it isn’t blurry. They provide views that are larger than 180* degrees. These are often used in astronomy, meteorology, surgery, surveillance, doorbell cameras, and peepholes, among many other uses. Panoramas are made from a camera taking many many pictures and stitching them all together in the space of a few seconds to make an extra long or very tall photo, one that shows more than the human eye can see without moving your head from side to side or up and down. Panoramic images can be used for landscape photography, as well as for a cityscape or even a picture of an entire building that is very tall or full photo of a tall tree.