How To Create FishEye Effect in After Effects And Premiere Pro

What is fisheye effect?

The FishEye Effect refers to the ultrawide, warped perspective achieved with a fisheye camera lenses. These specialty lenses have an ultra-wide field of view that takes in a whole hemispheric image, often with strong visual distortion around the edges. This creates a distinctive bulging, circular effect. The fisheye lenses barrel distortion give photos and videos an immersive look, like the viewer is surrounded by the environment.

Some fisheye filter examples in movies

Stuck trying to shoot through a keyhole? Ditch the macro, grab the fisheye effect. It’ll bend the light just like your nosey neighbor’s Peepin’ eye, adding a dash of voyeuristic thrill to your scene.

Remember that gnarly flick, Mid90s? The whole thing was shot through a fisheye lens, like some retro VHS fever dream. Why? Well, it was totally rad for the era, capturing the vibe of those skateboarding gremlins with a warped, wide-eyed stare. No fancy mood-setting here, just pure aesthetic juice.

But then there’s stuff like The Favourite, where the fisheye lens ain’t just a nostalgic toy. It’s a mind-bender, twisting the court of Queen Anne into a dizzying funhouse of power plays and twisted loyalties. You’re never sure who’s friend or foe, just like those distorted faces staring back at you through the warped glass. It’s like Alice tumbled down a rabbit hole into a fisheye effect wonderland, where reality’s all bent and everyone’s got a hidden agenda.

Fisheye lens effect in After Effects

Follow these steps in the After Effects panel:

1. Open up After Effects and import the footage you want to be fish-eyed.

2. Inside the Effects & Presets panel, search for the Warp effect.

3. Then under the Distort choose Warp and apply it to your footage. You will see that the footage is distorted and a side of it is black.

4. Don’t worry, go to the Effect Controls and change the Warp Style to FishEye.

Then you can play around with Bend to give it the look you want. By increasing the Bend amount the objects will be zoomed in and by decreasing it, it’ll zoom out. So it depends on the mood you want to create by using the fisheye effect.

Non-Destructive Alternative: Use an Adjustment Layer

Instead of applying Warp directly to your footage, try placing it on an adjustment layer. Go to Layer > New > Adjustment Layer, then drag the Warp effect onto it and set the Warp Style to FishEye. Adjust Bend the same way. This keeps your original footage untouched, lets you toggle the fisheye on and off instantly, and applies the effect across multiple clips at once if the adjustment layer spans them on the timeline.

Troubleshooting the Fisheye Warp

• Slow preview playback — the Warp effect is render-heavy. Switch your composition to Draft Mode (Fast Draft in the preview panel) and lower the Resolution dropdown to Half or Quarter while you dial in the look. Set it back to Full only for your final render.
• Stretched or torn edges — cranking Bend too high warps pixels at the frame borders beyond what the source can cover. Increase the value gradually and, if you still see artifacts, add composition padding: make your comp slightly larger than the footage (e.g., 110% scale), apply Warp, then nest the comp and crop back to the original size.
• Distortion too strong in certain areas — draw a mask on the effect layer (or adjustment layer) to limit where the fisheye applies. Use a soft-feathered ellipse mask so only the center of the frame gets the full barrel distortion while the outer region stays closer to normal.

Fisheye effect in Premiere Pro

1. So inside Premiere Pro, import your footage to your timeline.

2. Search for the Lens Distortion effect in the Effects panel and add it to your video.

3. Go to the Effects Controls and under the Lens Distortion, set the Curvature to 100, and also Unselect the Fill Alpha. You’ll see that you got dark edges around the frame.

4. To fix dark edges, go up and under the Transform, increase the Scale to something around 160. the aim is to fill the frame by zooming in.

5. For an authentic fisheye lens look, add an Ellipse mask to round off the frame. Select your clip, then open Opacity in the Effects Control panel. Click the Oval (ellipse) mask tool to create a mask shape on the preview window. Drag and resize it to frame the center of your distorted footage. Increase Mask Feather (try 50-100) to soften the edges so the round border blends naturally into black. Keep in mind that it’s way better to use this technique for videos with high quality, as you have to zoom in.

Fisheye Pitfalls and Creative Uses

Common mistakes to watch for:

• Over-distorting — pushing Bend (AE) or Curvature (Premiere) too high makes footage look cartoonish. Keep values moderate for a realistic wide-angle feel.
• Poor timing — a constant, static fisheye can feel flat. Match distortion intensity to scene pacing, easing it in during high-energy moments and pulling back during calm shots.
• Ignoring edge artifacts — extreme settings stretch pixels near the frame edges. Scale up or apply an ellipse mask (as shown in the Premiere section) to hide warped borders.

Creative ways to use the fisheye effect:

• Music videos and skate edits for that raw, immersive POV (think Mid90s).
• Social media reels where the barrel distortion grabs attention in the first second.
• Sports and action intros to exaggerate speed and depth.
• VR-style content where the wide field of view mimics a headset perspective.

Animate the Fisheye for Dynamic Shots

The static Curvature approach above works great for a constant fisheye look, but you can also keyframe it for dramatic in/out transitions:

• In the Effects Control panel, click the stopwatch next to Curvature to enable keyframing. Set a keyframe at 0 where you want the normal view, then move the playhead forward and set Curvature to your target value (e.g., 100) where you want full fisheye. Premiere interpolates between the two, smoothly warping the footage in or out.
• For a zoom-distortion combo, add the Transform effect (Effects panel > Video Effects > Distort > Transform) and keyframe its Scale alongside your Curvature keyframes. For example, animate Scale from 100 to 200 while Curvature ramps up for an intense zoom-warp effect.
• Set the Shutter Angle under Transform to 360 to introduce motion blur during the animated distortion, which sells the movement and hides any pixel stretching.
• To reuse the setup on other clips, select both Lens Distortion and Transform in the Effects Control panel, copy them (Ctrl/Cmd+C), select the target clip, and paste (Ctrl/Cmd+V). All keyframes carry over.

Conclusion: How to use fisheye camera lens?

So you can turn your normal videos into a curved fisheye video by using these two methods in Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro. But the way of getting even more professional fisheye effect look for your video is by using a fisheye lens to record the video with, and see what you’ll get as the result, early on. This is true about many tasks in filmmaking, to design shooting based on what you want in the end. But if you don’t have access to the wide angle lens or have decided to add the effect after the recording, you can use the mentioned ways to get the effect in post.