15~85mm...fisheye?

My question is, why is it that when I use my 15~85mm, the edges of the pic are 'rounded' or have a fisheye effect? here is what I mean...look at the vertical lines in the pics, the left and right side both angle inwards...

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Were you aiming the camera upward by any chance?

Perspective distortion, you're too close to the objects. I bet if you backed up a bit and got the camera higher off the ground things would straighten out a bit.

mike_d wrote in post #16616546
Were you aiming the camera upward by any chance?

Yes, if you have the camera level, you won't see the buildings leaning like that. It will be hard to get the same composition but unless you use tilt/shift lenses, it is the only way to get rid of those leaning buildings.

Hmmm, the first one I was shooting from below the church, but the second one I was on a flat surface, on a tripod raised up the whole way, 72", shooting pretty level, and as you can tell, I'm not all that close.

I realized it was doing it quite a while ago, and sometimes I actually try to get the effect, like below...

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It's perspective distortion, pretty standard for wide angle lenses.

OK, cool, I was just hoping there wasn't something wrong with the lens.

Thanks!!!

~Ace

Lightroom can fix this effect to a degree.

I saw a tutorial about using perspective in CS6 but I haven't tried it. I just wanted to see if there was a way to prevent it or if it was a lens malfunction of sorts. I didn't think the 15~85 was considered a 'wide angle' lens like the 10-22 and such.

10-22 is what is known as "ultrawide angle". But even at 15mm the perspective distortion can be strong. A slight upward direction of the lens at this FL is going to show it. Just keep it in mind when shooting, and learn to fix it in post processing.

Wide angle distortion.

OK - time for me to chime in just to make sure nobody gets confused here. No criticism intended of the posters above; it's just a compulsion I have.

There is mention here of "wide angle distortion". It has to be stressed that this phrase is doubly misleading as the effect being described is neither truly a distortion, nor is it caused by wide angle lenses.

What it is is the normal operation of perspective emphasised by close proximity to the subject.

It's standard on any lens.
It all depends on how far you are from the subject.

It's just becomes more noticeable the "wider" the focal length.

PH68 wrote in post #16617679
It's standard on any lens.
It all depends on how far you are from the subject.

It's just becomes more noticeable the "wider" the focal length.

Not quite. It becomes more noticeable the closer you stand regardless of how wide the lens is.

xarqi wrote in post #16617687
Not quite. It becomes more noticeable the closer you stand regardless of how wide the lens is.

Wrong. If you stand close with a non-wide angle lens (think telephoto), you won't see the effect. You have to be both (a) standing close, an (b) using a fairly wide angle lens, to see strong perspective effect.