Are there any camera lenses shaped like a periscope?

Question

Are there any camera lenses shaped like a periscope? I want to put a lense on my camera and use my camera like regular but have the lense see above the crowd. A periscope shaped lense would be perfect. Also, it would be so long it could have high magnification.

Answer 1

No.

There used to be "right angle" attachments that screwed into the front of your lens. It was nothing but a tube with a hole in the side and a mirror mounted at a 45 degree angle. You could appear to be taking pictures of subjects in front of you while really taking them of subjects to the side. You can probably find one on ebay.

Photojournalists always held their cameras as high over their heads as possible and used a wide angle lens (28mm, 35mm) at f8 or f11 and focused at infinity to get shots in crowds. Some even used a monopod and a long cable release if their camera had a motordrive.

I doubt a periscope-like device could have "high magnification". It would require a lot of glass and be too heavy to hold. Additionally, the light fall-off would cause an image to be too dark. (See the "Inverse Square Law". It explains how the intensity of light decreases the farther it travels from the source.)