Some fisheye lenses use a stereographic projection to capture a wide-angle view. Compared to more traditional fisheye lenses which use an equal-area projection, areas close to the edge retain their shape, and straight lines are less curved. However, stereographic fisheye lenses are typically more expensive to manufacture.  Image remapping software, such as Panotools, allows the automatic remapping of photos from an equal-area fisheye to a stereographic projection.
The stereographic projection has been used to map spherical panoramas, starting with Horace Bénédict de Saussures in 1779. This results in effects known as a little planet (when the center of projection is the nadir) and a tube' (when the center of projection is the zenith).
The popularity of using stereographic projections to map panoramas over other azimuthal projections is attributed to the shape preservation that results from the conformality of the projection.