Widwed: Wideangle Distortion

I learned a lot today. I always do when I run a challenge like this ... mainly about how much I DON'T know. In any event I got a lot of ideas for future shoots.

Here I am at the rotting and dilapidated Zig Zag Railway near Lithgow. All is silent except for the breeze through nearby trees and long grass. I finished up having to apply all my listed rules for maximum distortion from yesterday but the site itself helped me along. The Zig Zag people originally bought a lot of old rolling stock up north from Queensland Railways, where the rail gauge is not a standard width. It is only 3 feet 6 inches (1067 mm) instead of 4 feet 8.5 inches (1435 mm). So while the rails might have been made to look a bit strange here, they were actually a little strange to start off with.

Apart from all of the above, this is the Wideangle Wednesday: Wideangle Distortion (widwed64) challenge for this week. For an explanation of what it's all about, see my blip of yesterday. Then why not join in and have a go at using a wide angle lens to strikingly distort a suitable subject?

This coming Friday after 9:00 am (Blue Mountains time), I'll work out the  hearts and honourable mentions. Next week's challenge will be "Forced Perspective", which I'll discuss in my Pre Widwed blip, next Tuesday. 

12 HOURS LATER: I can see from your postings that many people have had trouble with this and (as usual) it is really my fault for not pointing out the following:
- barrel distortion is not the only desirable distortion. Perspective distortion is perfectly valid and just as effective in my view. Congrats to those who have concentrated on that
- I and several other people are using ff focal lengths less than 20mm. This does help a lot, obviously BUT it is also true that many of your newer (especially mirrorless) cameras are actually fighting your efforts in two ways. They are using lenses especially designed to minimise barrel distortion and some are actually using software  to correct what existing barrel distortion there may be during the conversion to JPEG. Makes it hard
- I did forget to emphasise the need to get so close to your subjects that you are likely to be at minimum focus distance and that you should use apertures in the range f16 (larger sensor cameras) or maybe f8 with small sensor compacts.

For my next trick blip (as penance) I shall use a mere (so-called ) smart phone to attempt wide angle distortion. Then we'll see smarty pants Hobbs come a cropper. :o))