Category: photography

How to Make a Fisheye Lens for Under $20

Posted by Jan Vrsinsky – April 22, 2010

Bhautik Joshi, the crazy guy who put a 18-55mm SLR lens on his iphone, has created another awesome do-it-yourself device. He uses a fisheye peephole as the main lens element and a decapitated soda can as the lens body. You can attach the whole thing to a SLR camera. Amazing!!! The quality is of course still awful but the thing is that you now can make fisheye photos with a lens that costs virtually nothing. Just take your crappy old DSLR camera, attach this lens, take 4 images at a place and stitch them together. This is I believe another step closer to making spherical panoramic photography mainstream. Good job Bhautik!

You can read the whole guide how to build it and more screenshots in the author’s article: The fisheye tin cam

The fisheye tin cam sample images

The fisheye tin cam lens

(I found this article originally at PetaPixel, thanks!)

360-degree Panorama of The Highest Pub in Africa (and some other panoramas)

Posted by Jan Vrsinsky – March 31, 2010

Here are some of the interesting panoramas I’ve taken in South Africa.

This accomodation is called Sani Top Challet, and inside there is actually the highest pub in Africa, or so they claim. The altitude is 2865m above sea level here. To the left of the building you can see the Lesotho border post (75% of tourists that come to Lesotho use this gate to enter the country).

Sani Top Chalet in South Africa

This was absolutely pleasant experience. Look at the landscape around … one of the best places in the world I’ve seen for riding a horse. The pano was taken during a short break we took to enjoy the landscape around. Make sure you go fullscreen…

Khotso Horse Ride Break in South Africa

a local football game in Himeville

Local Football Game in Himeville in South Africa

Sani Pass (a picturesque valley that stretches between Republic of South Africa and Lesotho)

Sani Pass in South Africa

A Mix of Videos From My Trip to Southern Hemisphere (South Africa)

Posted by Jan Vrsinsky – March 30, 2010

I returned from South Africa on Saturday where I was working for two weeks on a part of the pilot phase of Project: Exposure – tourism business development program in which our company 360cities.net is a partner. Here are some videos from the trip (taken with my iphone).

Thousands of Amur Falcons are ready to leave South Africa where they spend south african winter

Driving in a 4×4 car down through a beautiful landscape of Cobham Nature Reserve around Sani Pass Road which connects Lesotho and South African border post.

Mexpedition Diaries: 360 panoramic imagery and photos from Mexico, Belize and Guatemala

Posted by Jan Vrsinsky – June 1, 2009

I invite you to follow my Mexpedition Diaries photoblog. A regular dose of imagery from Mexico, Belize and Guatemala I created during a trip in 2008. You can find photos as well as spherical 360 panoramas there.

Deformed Maya Skull
(go to Mexpedition Diaries)

We started in Mexico City and headed north, then through Palenque to Yucatan, then to Belize, Guatemala and back to Mexico City. Here’s the map of the whole Mexpedition Diaries trip. More…

4 Unusual Locations For 360 Panos

Posted by Jan Vrsinsky – May 13, 2009

I’ve discovered panoramic 360 (spherical) photography during the fall of 2008 using the great Czech servers Virtual Travel and Hundred-Spired Prague created by inspiring guys Jaroslav and Tomas from Panoramas.cz.

Since then I’ve been having fun with unusual places and locations where a spherical panorama can be taken. I went to a trip to Mexico, Belize and Guatemala which was a great opportunity for me to find such places. Thanks again Jaroslav to lending me your fisheye lens!

I took a lot of spherical panoramas during the trip, all of them handheld, without using a special equipment like a tripod or panohead. If you are a beginner and want to know how to take a handheld spherical panorama without a tripod, check out my 7 Steps to Creating Your First Handheld Spherical Panorama In a Moving Vehicle. The short article contains some useful links too. I also recommend you to read panoguide.com for some interesting info on panoramic photography.

Now I have my own fisheye lens: Sigma 3.5 8mm, so I can experiment even more. Check out some of the panos I’ve taken so far on not so usual locations and at not so usual speeds:
More…

Pareto Principle Applied to Photography

Posted by Jan Vrsinsky – May 12, 2009

GWY stands for a Guy with a camera. A GWY is somebody who has an decent camera and thinks they’re a pro but in fact they cannot shoot good photos.

Do I fit the definition? Maybe. But I know this: I love photography. I’m not an expert and I don’t know all the photography tips and tricks and photoshop effects the experts recommend. Nor I have the newest camera and a set of top-quality lenses. However I know I have a mindset and the will to learn everything necessary if I wanted to and if I wanted to spend the time. I also know I could get all the equipment I’d need.

two volcanoes and the boat

two volcanoes and the boat

I’m actually learning those tricks slowly as I need them time to time and I’m also improving my equipment. I’m priviledged to be influenced by some great photographers I had a chance to meet recently and I’m also grateful to Jeff from 360cities that showed me some nice tricks and also introduced me to the world of HDR.

That said, I usually apply the Pareto principle to my pictures. I don’t spend too much time on them. When I first started using this approach I had a hard time with it. I wanted everything to be perfect, no matter the time spent. That’s a highway to hell, well, at least a highway to not doing other things I want to do. So nowdays I only spend time with really important pictures. 

red and lights on water by Jan Vrsinsky

red and lights on water

This approach brings me a mixture of great elements of life. Fun with much more experimenting than I could do if I was a perfectionist, more lessons to be learned and a warm fuzzy feeling of self-achievement because “I know I can but I don’t”.