Posted on Oct.22, 2010, under Architecture
(Nikon D700, 16mm fisheye, ISO 1000, Exposure 1/30 sec @ f/8.0)
I’ve been feeling someone uninspired in my photography of late, getting bored with shooting similar subjects. I really enjoy shooting with a wide angle lens, but I typically use the wide angle for architecture shots to give me enough material to create reasonably straight lines. However, I’ve always enjoyed seeing images of architecture and other subjects which have been shot with a fisheye lens. So, just for fun and to mix things up a bit, I decided to rent the Nikkor 16mm fisheye for use on my D700. I went out for a walk around town late yesterday just to see what sort of interesting images I might be able to create with this lens. I managed to get a few that I liked and I enjoyed shooting with this lens.
The image above shows ‘The Arcadian Antiques’ a store located in Nickels Arcade located in Ann Arbor, Michigan next to the campus of the University of Michigan. The Arcade is an interesting structure, basically a long covered alleyway between two buildings. It’s an interesting place to photograph with lots of different subjects. For this shot I really wanted to make use of the curved distortion created by the fisheye. I got close to one wall and I liked the way the lens curved the doorframe of the shop and also added a bit of an arc to the ceiling and walkway. For processing, I used Nik’s Silver Efex Pro to convert the color image to black & white. I started with the ‘Antique’ preset and made some further adjustments. The preset created the toning and the vignetting which I thought worked well with the subject (an Antiques store) as well as the curved nature of the shot. As always, the original out of camera shot is shown below.
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Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.