Two questions for you guys...

1)I bought a "fisheye" lens on ebay, however, when I got the box, it was a .42X wide angle lens. There doesnt seem to be very much "fisheye" effect going on....is it the same thing???

This is the one I got... Lens

I know its a POS, Im just experimenting..... is it not a true fisheye?


2)Can someone explain to me the graphs that I see on the screen? What do they mean, and what gets the best pic? (the graph I mean would be the black background with white tight bargraph moving up/down depending on where you point the camera....

Thanks guys!

 

1) it's an accessory lens that screws into the end of a lens mounted on the camera. The "fisheye effect" is at least partly reliant on the lens it is attached to. In other words, if you attach it to a telephoto, there would be an increase in field of view, but no real fisheye effect. Mounted on a wide angle, the effect would be more pronounced.

2) Are you asking about the histogram on your camera? The basic idea is the camera settings (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) combine to capture an image. If the settings let in too much light, all the highlights will be washed out - anything in the scene that is well lit or a lighter color will be white with no detail. If the combined settings don't let in enough light, all the darker or shadowed areas will be black with no details. Ideally, you want details in the shadows and the highlights.

The histogram will show you the distribution of light (or "tones") over the scene. Not every scene is going to have every tone, so the histogram changes depending on what you point the camera at. It is useful once you have an idea of the relationship between images and the histogram, but you can't really use the histogram alone to tell if the scene is properly exposed.

 

If you have a live preview tone histogram that's pretty cool. I have to "chimp" and look at it after I take my pics.

 

Mine is live.....but I have no idea how to read it....gonna google it.

 

middle is good... far left or far right is bad.

 

Here's a good starter article on histograms --

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...istograms.shtml

There is a subtlety called "expose to the right," meaning as long as you don't blow out too many pixels (piled up at right edge) you want to move the exposure to the right (toward overexposure) if you are post-processing. You don't need to worry about this as a newbie but when you get comfortable with the histogram and editing pictures in Photoshop or other you might revisit it. When you do, see --

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...ose-right.shtml

 

Awesome stuff. Thanks for sharing!

 

Okay.. here goes... The camera you have is sub-frame meaning that the photo sensor is smaller than 26 x 35mm and therefore is croping the fisheye effect out of the center of the frame. I personally would return it!

 

The lens or the camera? I got the camera for $10, so I dont think I will return it. Ive been reasonably happy with some of the photos I took with it, but if its not enough for my needs, I will still get an SLR. The camera does have settings for addon lenses though.....and I did get a decent fisheye out of it.....



Dont mind the blurryness, it was dark/raining, and I wasnt using a tripod.

 

Wait.... When you posted a link to the lens it showed a Canon 20D. Is this not the camera you are using?