[ashton042]

When I was in 4th grade my classmates and I sent a balloon to near-space. We captured the CURVE of the earth. I am willing to change my beliefs if you can give me a good reason.

Proof - http://www.woodburybulletin.com/news/education/2689207-woodbury-grade-schoolers-science-project-reaches-stratosphere

[Tom Bishop]

Its called a fish-eye lens.

[SiDawg]

I was thinking about this "fish eye" issue the other day: someone needs to send up a balloon with a "grid reference" in front of the camera, i.e. a clear acrylic plastic sheet perpendicular to the camera, with some verticle and horizontal grid lines.

Then you have clear points of reference so if you can see a curve on both, you can tell how much of the curve is from the curve of the globe and how much is from any lens effect

Then again apparently "that image is faked" is considered a fair response so it probably won't help

[AATW]

I was thinking about this "fish eye" issue the other day: someone needs to send up a balloon with a "grid reference" in front of the camera, i.e. a clear acrylic plastic sheet perpendicular to the camera, with some verticle and horizontal grid lines.

Then you have clear points of reference so if you can see a curve on both, you can tell how much of the curve is from the curve of the globe and how much is from any lens effect

Then again apparently "that image is faked" is considered a fair response so it probably won't help

A video was posted a while back on here which did exactly that - well, not exactly, no grid reference, but it was unedited footage of a balloon from the ground and someone did some excellent analysis of it with stills from the video showing that at ground level some straight lines appeared straight so the lens was true.

But then they have another get-out which is this Wiki page

https://wiki.tfes.org/High_Altitude_Photographs

If there isn't a curve: That proves the earth is flat
If there is a curve: Fish eye lens
If there is a curve and you can prove it's not a fish eye lens: That's what we'd expect to see! 

[Ratboy]

So given it is a fish eye lens, what is the black stuff in the photo?  What shape should the black stuff have if it is not distorted?  The more appropriate answer is that the balloon flight was faked not that the lens of the camera it took pictures with has a fish eye lens.  If the FE model is true, the picture (if a fish eye lens was used) should have been of a distorted ice wall with whatever is on the other side of the ice wall.  How do we know that the photo is not of the FE pie plate?  It would be round too!  An undistorted photo that shows a straight line with black space on one side and the earth on the other still does not fit the FE model.

[ShowmetheProof]

Its called a fish-eye lens.

So your claim is that, if I am indeed correct and I hope you will correct me if I am wrong, schoolchildren are in on this and the government forced them to use a fish-eye lens, which is something many of them wouldn't know about, for their school project.  Really?

[Curious Squirrel]

Its called a fish-eye lens.

So your claim is that, if I am indeed correct and I hope you will correct me if I am wrong, schoolchildren are in on this and the government forced them to use a fish-eye lens, which is something many of them wouldn't know about, for their school project.  Really?

I find it far more likely whatever camera they bought for this either came with that as it's default lens, or something about the altitude or similar caused an equivalent effect. I mean, look at the picture. It's clearly curving WAY too much/incorrectly. It might not be a fish eye, but it's not a lens designed to properly capture undistorted images at that height at the very least.

[TomInAustin]

Its called a fish-eye lens.

That would have a lot more weight if you were to acknowledge the examples where a prime or near prime lens was used.