I was asked recently to introduce Helvetica to an auditorium of folk at the University of Michigan Helvetica Screening (sponsored by UMMA, University of Michigan School of Art & Design, University of Michigan AIGA Student Group, and AIGA Detroit). I happily agreed and last night I made my way through a completely packed auditorium (the isles were full as well and people stood outside the doorways in the halls to watch) to introduce myself, the sponsors, Craig Steen the president of AIGA Detroit, and finally introduce the film itself to get things rolling.

The movie itself is amazing; it’s very well produced. The interviews are very interesting, insightful, and overall extremely funny. These interviewees are leaders in their fields and while they are all respected for their work, a lot of them have outrageously contrasting viewpoints as far as typography and “good design” goes. It certainly is a group of very opinionated designers. Seeing two renowned designers such as Massimo Vignelli (whom I just wrote about) and Erik Spiekermann get so worked up over this one little ubiquitous font is really interesting, though I think Spiekermann would win if they came to fisticuffs over the matter (being 16 years his junior).

After the film we facilitated discussion to a smaller audience on the opinions expressed in the movie and on the movie itself. Some interesting points and questions were raised.

For our first UM AIGA Student Group event it was an amazing turnout and super successful. This movie is definitely a must see, but good luck finding it at your local Blockbuster.

For a long time I had been lusting after a myriad of fisheye lenses if for anything but the sheer novelty of having a fisheye lens. Many of the lenses are quite expensive, at least for a college student so I didn’t really give much thought to these lenses at all. At some point the Lomography Fisheye Adaptor from Lomography.com caught my eye. I made mental note of the existence of a such an attachment that allows for fisheye photos.

Not so long ago I found myself revisiting the thought of fisheye photos just for something different to do. And so I took the plunge and spent my $85 on the Fisheye Adaptor. And from the fun I’ve had with it, I’d say it was money well spent.

My biggest problem with buying new lenses is that I prefer taking photos with my old Canon camera and the majority of lenses aren’t made with the proper mount for this type of camera so I have almost limitless possibilities for what I can’t buy. The Fisheye Adaptor was exactly what I was looking for; I could attach it to both my film SLR and my digital SLR via the 4 different sized thread adaptors.

The fisheye adaptor comes packaged nicely stuffed inside a little pouch inside a nice little green box, the 4 (49mm, 52mm, 55mm, and 58mm) filter rings come each in their own little boxes. Also included is a Universal Holga Mount, complete with the little screws for securing it, so you can mount the adaptor right to your Holga camera if you so have one. The lens itself is about the same size as our standard 50mm lens, perhaps a tiny bit smaller. It feels pretty solid for a plastic lens, and it’s got a nice hefty weight to it which just feels nice, unless it happens to be thrown at you that is.

Now, depending on the type of lens (and camera) you attach it to and the level of zoom you’re at, you’ll get a little different effects. First off, if you attach it to a lens on a digital camera you might note that the fisheye effect isn’t as strong as it is when attached to a film camera. This is because there is a 1.6x conversion ratio between film and digital zooms, digital 28.8mm zoom is about the same as 35mm zoom on a film camera. Either way, you still get the nice fisheye effect.

The more you zoom in on your subject the less of the fisheye effect you’ll get. In this photo below I’ve zoomed out to about 24mm on my digital camera (equivalent to about 38.4mm on a film camera). You’ll notice that you don’t see the inside walls of the lens in the corners anymore, and you get a little more of a vignetting effect, and you’ll also notice that the severity of the fisheye effect is lessened. While the effect is lessened the fisheye distortion is still better than the usual wide-angle lenses.

If you attach this thing to your standard 50mm lens you’ve got yourself a full frame fisheye that acts more like super wide-angle lens. I find that attaching this thing to a zoom lens, something in the range of 18mm to 55mm on the digital side or 28mm to 80mm on the film side, is really ideal. With a zoom lens you can choose the amount of fisheye effect that you want.

The only complaints I have is that there are not filter threads on the front of the lens, but that’s no matter as I can still attach them to the lens behind the filter adaptor.

Pretty nifty for a $85 lens.