Research: Fisheye Lens

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Project 03 Body and Experience

History

In 1906 renowned physicist Robert W. Wood was in his lab at Johns Hopkins University with

  • A bucket of water
  • A pinhole camera
  • Mirrored glass
  • A lot of light

He wanted to see if He could create an image of the world from the perspective of a fish.

Whose view from underwater compresses the entire horizon.

This experiment might seem unusual, but Woods was a professor of optical physics and he dedicated his career to inventing unconventional tool, to study light. From developing this disk whose microscopic components helped determine the age of stars, to inventing this toy which, according to the patent, ‘’create grotesque image of people’s faces’’ through a series of perfectly placed mirrors.

‘’the circular picture would contain everything embraced within an angle of 180 degrees in every direction, i.e. a complete hemisphere.’’

This is what a fish might see if all those men were looking down at it from the surface of pond.

Nikon Fisheye Camera

Soon, researchers and scientists built on Wood’s idea. From 1915 through the 1930s, it was the fields of metrorology and astronomy that drove the development of a camera lens that could capture that coveted fisheye perspective. And on the eve of WWII, German inventors filed a patent for a lens which they then shared with the Japanese company Nikon. The lens used the same principles as Woods’ water experiment.

His diagram: As the light rays come in at a steep angle, they come out at a less steep angle.
And so those light rays that are coming from huge angles are compressed onto the picture.

In 1957, Nikon produced their first special order fisheye camera, factoring in inflation, it was a $27,000 piece of gear.

1957 issue of Life Magazine: A senate hearing

Though they were still primarily used for scientific research, a few caught the attention of magazines and newspaper photographers.

Pop culture

In 1962, sixty years after Robert Woods’ original experiments, Nikon’s first consumer grade fish-eye lens hit the market. And it became a pop culture phenomenon.
Fisheye – Nikkor 1:8 F=8MM
It captured baseball stadiums, shark cages, political conventions, The Apollo trainings, protests…

It was and always has been a handy tool to capture tight quarters, as well as huge spaces.

But perhaps its greatest strength was making rock stars appear larger than life.

1964: When the Beatles kicked off the British Invasion the mid 60s. The fish eye lens was uniquely suited to document the insanity.

Here they are at a Miami press conference and during a TV performance.

Album Art

The lens warped perspective reflected the trippiness of the psychedelic era. Including the Woodstock music festival.

Jazz musician, Sam Rivers’, 1965 album Fuchsia Swing Song. It’s one of the earliest fisheye album covers. A few months later The Byrds released Mr Tambourine Man. Over the next few years the fisheye album art format cemented itself in music.

The most common format was this:
A giant circular fisheye lens portrait of the artist or band with typography above and below it. In more illustrated approaches the font wraps fully around the image.
And some exclude the artist altogether, opting to show an interesting scene or landscape.

The fisheye lens was a go-to piece of gear for music photographers and filmmakers by the end of the 1970s. So by the time MTV launched in 1981, it was inevitable that the super wide angle lens would play a huge role in music videos. It could get super close to a performer while still capturing the space around them.

Bibliography

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