photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

, a rectilinear lens is a photographic lens that yields images where straight features, such as the edges of walls of buildings, appear with straight lines, as opposed to being curved. In other words, it is a lens with little or no barrel or pincushion

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

. At particularly wide angles, however, the rectilinear perspective will cause objects to appear increasingly stretched and enlarged as they near the edge of the frame. These types of lenses are often used to create forced perspective effects. The most famous example is the Rapid Rectilinear Lens developed by John Henry Dallmeyer in 1866. It allowed distortionless photos to be taken quickly for the first time, and was a standard lens design for 60 years. As of 2020, the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 lens is the world's widest rectilinear lens for full frame cameras. The vast majority of video and still cameras use lenses that produce nearly rectilinear images. A popular alternative type of lens is a

fisheye lens A fisheye lens is an ultra wide angle lens, ultra wide-angle lens that produces strong Distortion (optics), visual distortion intended to create a wide panorama, panoramic or Sphere#Hemisphere, hemispherical image. Fisheye lenses achieve extremel ...

which produces a distinctly curvilinear, wide-angled result.

References

* Photographic lenses

External links

The physics of Rectilinear and Equidistant wide angle lenses
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See also

References

External links