A fisheye is an extreme wideangle lens that no longer attempts to render straight lines as straight. Instead, they appear as curves which are more pronounced away from the centre of the frame. This distortion effect means that fisheyes are really only suitable for special effects photography, and then only in small doses, though they do have certain scientific/technical uses too (analysing cloud cover for meteorological studies, for example).
Fisheye lenses come in two types: standard and ‘circular’. The picture above was shot using a standard fisheye lens. The 10mm focal length offers a very wide angle of view (though no wider than a wideangle zoom) but no correction for curvature, hence the characteristic fisheye perspective. The lens does fill the full sensor area, though.
Circular fisheyes offer the widest angle of view but also the greatest distortion. The name comes from the fact that they don’t fill the full sensor area, producing instead a circular image in the centre.
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