Nikon AF DX Fisheye NIKKOR 10.5mm f/2.8G ED Lens

I've owned the DX fisheye for about a year now. Digital technology has now rescued what would traditionally be seen as an effect lens. Despite initial misgivings, this is one of the most useful lenses in my bag, and it's so small and light that it goes with me everywhere.

Fisheye lenses are 'uncorrected' ultra-wide angle lenses. Traditionally they come in two types. A 'true' fisheye gives a circular 360 degree image on the film or sensor, while a full frame fisheye gives about 180 degrees from corner to corner, but fills the entire frame. The Nikon 10.5 DX is full frame, which most people would agree is the more useful variant.

By 'uncorrected' we are talking about rectangular distortion. The lens is in fact heavily corrected for chromatic aberration, although the extreme angles by which light enters the lens mean that there will always be breakup at the edges. The rectangular distortion means that only straight lines which pass through the centre of the lens appear straight. All others are curved, with the curve becoming more prounounced the further you get from the centre.

'Classic' fisheye pictures give the impression that the world is about the size of a pingpong ball, as seen in the film 'Le Petit Prince' and on the cover of Mike Oldfield's 'Hergest Ridge'. As this is a rather specialised application, fisheyes were always seen as a special effect, and relatively few photographers owned one, while still fewer carried it with them.... Nikon, therefore, went out on something of a limb by releasing the DX fisheye before many other more general purpose digital lenses.

Two things make this far more useful as a digital lens than the film equivalent would be. First, as already mentioned, Nikon Capture is able to convert from fisheye to ultra-wide. This substantially increases chromatic aberration at the edges, and the results are certainly not pin-sharp at the corners, but the feature does dramatically increase the options. An alternative choice is Panotools for Photoshop. Secondly, the fact that you can shoot as much as you want, preview it instantly, and delete what doesn't work means that you can afford to take far more risks than you ever could on film.

I use this lens for three kinds of shots.

First off, putting the horizon in line with the centre of the lens makes for the least distortion in landscape shots, and non-photographers often won't spot that the picture is fish-eye at all. This messes up the rule of thirds, but there will be so much foreground and sky that I can crop to my heart's content. I can correct for rectangular distortion in Capture or Photoshop if I want, but often this is not necessary.

Second, this is an excellent portrait lens (no, really) for capturing someone in situ. For example, if you put someone in the corner of their office, occupying only the central fifth of the frame, everything in their office will seem to curve round and surround them. There's no need to worry about the sharpness of the subject, because the depth of field is so great. As before, I can crop to my heart's content after the fact. As an alternative, I can just walk up to an individual or a group and press the trigger, without worrying about focussing speed, centre of focus or even composition, because I know that everything will be sharp.

Third, it does sterling service for the kind of effect shots that can't be done after the fact in Photoshop. There's great fun to be had photographing the world from the top of a castle, and (rather more usefully) a lot to be done by standing on a chair and shooting a portrait from above. The close focus range on this lens is a very few centimetres, so you can get special effects of quite small objects.

So, is this special-use lens worth the money? Most of my work is for publication in the press or in advertising campaigns. Local papers are always looking for arresting images, and the fisheye is a good choice for conjuring something special out of a fairly ordinary situation. For advertising it does double service, as a workhorse to capture what otherwise couldn't be got, such as the entire palace of Westminster from over the road, and partly for the same kind of effect shots that go to the press. For the price of an afternoon's shooting (whether you are buying or selling), this is a lens that pays for itself quickly.

For the hobbyist or enthusiast: if you can afford it, this lens is great fun. Read more ›