page_title: Fisheye lens
section_title: Other applications
hierarchical_section_title: Fisheye lens / Other applications
caption_attribution_description: English: Bereft of colour in this striking infrared image, the sweeping curves of ESO's Headquarters clash with the frosty natural beauty of the surrounding trees. The extreme curvature visible in this image is due to the photographer's use of a fisheye lens, which distorts the view and causes the building to encircle the pale foliage and frame the sky above. The foliage appears to be bright as it reflects the infrared light, and the pale white hue comes from the photographer applying a white colour balance to the tree leaves. The precise curves of concrete, glass, and steel give clues as to the Headquarters building's peculiar structure. In 1981 an article in ESO's The Messenger described the ESO building as "a labyrinth of the kind used to test the intelligence of rats". But, fortunately for ESO, the writer soon noted that "human beings are on average cleverer than rats, and the problem is quickly solved". This image was taken by ESO computer specialist Dirk Essl.
context_page_description: A fisheye lens is an ultra wide-angle lens that produces strong visual distortion intended to create a wide panoramic or hemispherical image. Fisheye lenses achieve extremely wide angles of view. Instead of producing images with straight lines of perspective, fisheye lenses use a special mapping, which gives images a characteristic convex non-rectilinear appearance.
  The term fisheye was coined in 1906 by American physicist and inventor Robert W. Wood based on how a fish would see an ultrawide hemispherical view from beneath the water. Their first practical use was in the 1920s for use in meteorology to study cloud formation giving them the name "whole-sky lenses". The angle of view of a fisheye lens is usually between 100 and 180 degrees while the focal lengths depend on the film format they are designed for.
  Mass-produced fisheye lenses for photography first appeared in the early 1960s and are generally used for their unique, distorted appearance. For the popular 35 mm film format, typical focal lengths of fisheye lenses are between 8 mm and 10 mm for circular images, and 15–16 mm for full-frame images.
context_section_description: Many planetariums now use fisheye projection lenses to project the night sky or other digital content onto the interior of a dome.
  Fish-eye lenses are used in POV pornography to make things right in front of the camera look bigger.
  Flight simulators and visual combat simulators use fisheye projection lenses in order to create an immersive environment for pilots, air traffic controllers, or military personnel to train in.
  Similarly, the IMAX Dome (previously 'OMNIMAX') motion-picture format involves photography through a circular fisheye lens, and projection through the same onto a hemispherical screen.
  Scientists and resource managers (e.g., biologists, foresters, and meteorologists) use fisheye lenses for hemispherical photography to calculate plant canopy indices and near-ground solar radiation. Applications include evaluation of forest health, characterization of monarch butterfly winter roosting sites, and management of vineyards.
  Astronomers use fisheye lenses to capture cloud cover and light pollution data.
  Photographers and videographers use fisheye lenses so they can get the camera as close as possible for action shots whilst also capturing context, for example in skateboarding to focus on the board and still retain an image of the skater.
  The "eye" of the HAL 9000 computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey was constructed using a Fisheye-Nikkor 8 mm f/8 lens. HAL's point-of-view was filmed using a Fairchild-Curtis 'bug-eye' lens originally designed for films in the Cinerama 360 dome format.
  The first music video to be shot completely with fisheye lens was for the Beastie Boys song "Hold It Now, Hit It" in 1987.
  In Computer Graphics, circular fisheye images can be used to create environment maps from the physical world. One complete 180-degree wide angle fisheye image will fit to half of cubic mapping space using the proper algorithm. Environment maps can be used to render 3D objects and virtual panoramic scenes.
  Many personal weather station online cameras around the world upload fisheye images of the current local sky conditions as well as a previous day time-lapse sequence with climate conditions such as temperature, humidity, wind and rainfall amounts.
caption: The Curves of ESO’s Headquarters through a fish-eye lens.[57]
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