In my "Fisheye Fun" post, I talked a bit about using a fisheye lens as a landscape lens. It has its pros (massive vistas, easy to focus) and it's cons (distortion at the edges) so it needs to be used carefully. Because of the distortion, horizon lines can't follow the rule of thirds unless you crop later - They must stay at the centre of the lens to avoid the curved earth effect. However, if you do that, and keep any straight lines in the foreground away from the edges of the lens, you're set for some great views that pull in an enormous frame. I shot these first few in the second week of October, early one weekday morning. (Such are the joys of being between jobs - Time to shoot!)
All fisheye shots taken on the Canon EOS 60D with the Samyang 8mm T/3.8 fisheye.
Again from the northern shore. |
Now from a small cove on the north-eastern side. |
Another small cove on the north-eastern side. |
Around the eastern side now. |
A few days after, I headed back up to the lake in the late afternoon to do some more landscapes. I took my EF 16-35 f/2.8L II USM wide angle
and my EF 180 f/3.5L USM macro lenses, plus both the 60D and 5D MkII bodies. These next 4 were shot with the 5D + 16-35, capped with a variable ND filter for some long exposures. The water was a tiny bit choppy, so unfortunately I couldn't get that beautiful crisp glassy reflection as I had the other day, but never mind.
From the eastern shore. |
As the sun started setting lower I switched over to the 60D + EF 180, and shot the water skier against the setting sun. These shots turned out to be the highlight of the day, so the flaws in the above shots didn't matter. I hadn't come expecting this, so in the end, it all worked out wonderfully.
Acebil i705 DX) up so that I could use the panning head to follow the water-skiers more smoothly. Sure as eggs, they didn't ski at sunset, so I didn't get any more shots like those above, but as I was walking back around the trail, I found the perfect vantage point. The water was absolutely still, and the sun had just sunk below the horizon a few minutes earlier. The lights had just come on, and the reflections were lovely. I also had my EF 70-200 f/4L USM with me, so I popped it onto the 5D and zoomed out to 70mm. I took 4 more shots for the pano at both left and right extremes, but they turned out to be superfluous. As it is, the shot already has all it needs.
So, I returned to the lake on the morning of November 5th, hoping for some shots of the autumn colours. Well, that worked out just great... There was a low and gentle mist, and no wind, so the water was glassy smooth. These next shots were all shot with the 5D MkII and EF 16-35 f/2.8L MkII, with a variable ND filter on most. Given that the panorama shots were taken with an ultra wide angle lens, there is some distortion and slight colour patching in the skies, but I'm not worried about that too much. The images still stand, and they're all helping me improve on my landscape work.