>How did you demonstrate this? I'm curious. I don't really like the fisheye
>look, mainly because of the curved lines. It may betrue that we see
>spherically, but the info is processed so that everything looks straight,
>so it's disconcerting to see lenses that distort lines.
>Nick Silva
---Actually, we still see in curves, but we fool ourselves a lot;-) The fisheye
---image presents the whole truth to us scaled down so we can't ignore it, but
---if you make a large print, and view it closely curved in front of you,
---realism abounds. Logically, it is not possible to have a rectangular
---perspective with 180 degree coverage, since it would require a focal-length
---of zero (and wider than 180, like 6mm Nikkor, requires the focal-length to be
---a negative number!), so the eye forms a spherical perspective. From
---super-wide photos and drawings, it is apparent that, though the angle is
---well short of 180, the effects at the edge of field on rounded objects
---look unnatural and unexpected (unlike what we see near the edge of our field
---of view). If you look at a fisheye photo taken at "normal" distances from
---buildings, people, etc., they look roughly normal, even with the lens tipped
---(just as happens with us - most parallel convergence disappears, unless
---it occupies a LOT of visual field territory [like railroad tracks]), unlike
---a super-wide rectangular perspective lens of less coverage where parallel
---lines converge a lot. Also, it is no accident that eyebrows and cheeks
---crop our view area (try the same with a fisheye photo - looks familiar
---[especially when held close]?), and that we pay little attention to our
---peripheral vision areas. To see the curves, stand in a long hall way against
---one wall while looking straight ahead (helps if the wall-ceiling-floor
---colors and tones are very different). If you have learned to attend to
---parts of your field of vision that are not in the center, you can see the
---convergence to the right and left while looking straight ahead. Since there
---is no break in the lines of floor-wall and wall-ceiling intersections,
---those lines must curve (and they do visibly curve, if conditions are good
---enough to see those lines easily). And, as I now look straight ahead at
---the computer monitor, I can see that the metal open shelves to my left
---are clearly converging in the distance, which they would not do if I saw
---them in rectangular perspective - and the perspective stays relatively
---constant as I rotate toward the shelves (another attribute of fisheye
---perspective as opposed to rectangular). A brief coverage.