Today Nikon announced the release of the brand new AF-S Fisheye NIKKOR 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED lens. I’m excited to say that I had the honor and privilege of once again working with Nikon to create images for the launch of this lens.
This was an incredible shoot to be a part of as it took place in one of the most beautiful areas of the world: southern Patagonia. Thanks to the dramatic landscapes and topsy-turvy weather I experienced during the shoot I was able to create quite a few interesting images with this lens. However I also have to give a massive amount of credit for the success of the shoot to the creative director, Soichi Hayashi. It’s amazing to work with someone who has such respect for and faith in your work, to give you the freedom to create the photos you want while also providing excellent technical and creative feedback and ideas. Thank you very very much, Soichi.
The shoot was very loose, and the goal was simple: push the lens to its limits and discover its potential for landscape photography.
First, let me talk a little about the technical qualities of the lens. Pixel peepers will be happy to know that the lens itself is incredibly sharp, with excellent depth of field, even wide-open. It handles chromatic aberration well and has great color and contrast rendition. And with the new nano-crystal coat, flares and ghosts are virtually eliminated.
But as technically sound as the lens is, I was personally more interested in the artistic applications. Because a fisheye lens is not typically thought of as landscape lens I wanted to take the opportunity to dig into the versatility and unique perspectives of this new tool. If you’ve never used a fisheye lens before the first thing that will strike you is of course the fisheye perspective. Straight lines become wildly curved, objects close to the lens are exaggerated, and objects in the background are diminished.
And while the new Nikkor lens demonstrates all these classical fisheye attributes, it’s not a gimmick or a novelty. I quickly discovered that the neck-stretching perspective and fisheye distortion could be used creatively to create compelling, and otherwise-impossible, landscape imagery.
For example, on a full-frame body, the lens has a field of view of 180°. At 8mm, that gives you a fully circular image. At 15mm, the image fills the frame, but you still have almost 180° from corner to corner. This translates to roughly 150° across the frame. 150 degrees!! That’s huge! That means you can shoot panoramic images in a single frame. No stitching required.
Here’s a shot of the exact same scene using my AF-S NIKKOR 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G ED lens at 18mm for comparison.
In addition to the single-shot panoramics, the massive perspective of the lens gives you an opportunity to shoot foreground elements from extremely close and still get them entirely within the frame. For this photo I estimate that I was approximately 18″ away from the base of the tree, and that the tree is 7-8 feet tall.
The following photo was taken inside an ice tunnel in the Perito Moreno glacier. Even though the tunnel isn’t large the fisheye lens gives an immersive, wrap-around look.
And speaking of close, the minimum focus distance for this fisheye lens is 16 cm. Which means it can function as an incredibly unique macro lens as well.
One other cool thing about this fisheye lens is because of the way it renders real-world geometry, circular objects in the real world look like circles through the lens. Unlikely rectilinear ultra-wide lenses which turn circles into oblong ovals near the corners, this lens does a much better job of reproducing circles as circles. Here you can see a halo from the setting sun is almost perfectly circular despite being close to the edge of the frame.
Finally, let’s look at the heart of the fisheye distortion for this lens: straight lines in real life bend away from the center of the image frame. Because of that I found it very easy to create natural frames within a photo as shown below. In this case the trees in the upper right and lower left are actually parallel to each other, growing straight up out of the ground. But by laying down on the ground and shooting up I could easily wrap both of them around the interesting tree and clouds in the center of the frame.
Even within the confines of a dense forest I found this distortion to create a very pleasing effect, almost like the lines are wrapping around the central subject and giving it a visual hug. For example with this striking tree. The subtle curving of the branches and rocks around it do a great job of framing the main subject:
I also spent a few days creating lots of timelapse video using the lens.
And to cap things off here are a few more of my favorite images shot using the new AF-S Fisheye NIKKOR 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED. It’s a really fun lens to use, and surprisingly cool and versatile for landscape photography. And I personally can’t wait to buy a copy for myself. Hope you enjoyed seeing some of these first shots. If you have any questions about the lens let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Joshua Cripps is a renowned landscape photographer who has garnered worldwide acclaim for his breathtaking images of our planet’s wild places. His photos have been published by the likes of National Geographic, NASA, CNN, BBC, and Nikon Global.
The Mt. Whitney Gallery was founded in 2023 by Joshua Cripps as a way to share his passion stunning landscapes of the Sierra Nevada and beyond.
Set at the foot of the breathtaking Sierra with a view of the range’s highest peaks, the gallery features large format, museum-caliber fine art prints of Josh’s signature photographs.
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28 Responses
Hi Josh,
Great article / coverage of the new 8-15mm fisheye.
Did your technical contact lend any insight into the blue hue around the 8mm circular setting?
I have purchased the 8-15mm and I shoot many of the older Nikkor fisheyes (8mm f/2.8 AIS).
I have found at 8mm while it yields a round comp, the light will cast a blue hue as in your shots, or the sun flare will cast into the dark area surrounding the circle, unlike the older circular fisheyes.
Thanks – Tim
Hey Tim,
Thanks for the reply. That’s a really good question. I too noticed the blue ring around the edge at 8 mm. I didn’t ask about that as I assumed it was simply image degradation at the extreme edge of the lens. Some kind of chromatic aberration? Very interesting that the older fishes don’t do the same. Perhaps it’s a matter of the zoom vs prime lens. Next time I’m hanging around with the Nikon people I will ask them.
Cheers,
Josh
Hello Josh,
I love your pictures.
Does the Nikkor fisheye AF DX 10.5 f/2.8G on a DX camera provide a wider 180 degrees across the frame when compared with this 8-15mm fisheye lens? If I purchase the Nikon D850 and use this 8-15mm lens, will I get the same sharpness as I get from the 10.5mm 2.8 fisheye? Would I need to boost the ISO on the D850 to get the same sharpness I am used to getting from the 10.5mm fisheye?
Respectfully,
Amre
Hi Amre,
Thanks for the kind words. Both of these fisheye lenses will give you exactly 180 degrees. There may be some tiny differences but both are sold as 180° fisheye lenses. In terms of sharpness I’ve never used the DX 10.5 lens but usually FX lenses are sharper and better performing, though the 10.5 seems to have great reviews. Finally, for maximum sharpness on any lens you want to keep your ISO at its lowest base setting (64 for the D850), otherwise grain and reduced dynamic range will reduce detail. However, there is an exception to this rule: if using a low ISO causes a slow shutter speed and motion blur in the photo you may want a higher ISO for a faster shutter to reduce motion blur. Hope that helps and have fun!
Josh
Hi Josh
Many thanks for an excellent, real word review of this new fisheye. I have placed my order!
This lens will be ideal for my 360×180 degree VR panos. Four shots at 90 degrees combine perfectly with stitching software to produce very high-quality spheres especially when shot using a d850.
Regards
Frank
Hi Josh –
Just got this lens. WOW! I have to ask. My Nikon D810 does not seem to recognize the lens (i.e. imprint lens information) in the raw files – typically I will see lens mfr in the NEF files, in turn, not recognized by adobe light room. Do I even worry about this, or is there a remedy?
At any rate – your shots are JUST amazing, epic.
I plan on using this lens to capture lightning (too). I found even the Nikkor 20mm lens is amazing if the lightning is within a few miles etc. So, the thinking was that this fisheye would be a magnificent touch to add dramatic flare to lightning shots, more so, night storm shots… Thoughts?
Hey Rob,
Thanks for the kind words! For the lens info it sounds to me like LR hasn’t updated its database of recognized lenses to include this one yet. Try updating your copy of LR to see if that solves the problem. If not, it will probably happen in the next release of Camera Raw. In the meantime, you could try manually selecting the Canon 8-15 mm lens for profile corrections. It’s not going to be 100% accurate but it’s an ok workaround for now.
Shooting lightning with the lens sounds like a ton of fun! But bear in mind that unless you’re really close to your subject it will appear tiny through this lens. Meaning you might need to be in the heart of a lightning storm for it to appear. Could be……stimulating? There are probably a hundred ways to use this lens to creative capture some storm shots; I’ll leave them to you to explore!
Best,
Josh
Hi Josh,
Great article, beautiful sample images. I used a Tokina 11-16 on my D7000. Recently switched to a D750, and now looking for a replacement lens. Landscapes are not really my cup of tea, I’m more an architecture guy. Always try to take these pictures out of the ordinary, so this fisheye appeals to me a lot, especially since it looks that shooting at 15mm would be a lot like shooting with the 14-24mm Nikkor wide angle (I don’t really need the range from 16-24). I read your comment about the straight lines if pointed at the horizon. But what about shooting buildings? Will I always have to correct the lines in post processing? Any experience with this lens shooting architecture? Would be great if you could share your opinion.
Regards, Michiel
Hi Michiel,
Thanks so much! If you use this lens to shoot architecture you will always have curved lines somewhere in the frame. Landscapes can hide the curvature of the lens, but buildings will definitely show it. Of course, it could be a cool effect but you have to decide what you’re looking for.
Cheers,
Josh
It might be a good lens for full 360° panoramas. I will try it this week.
Josh, thanks for the info and all the sample pictures. They look great. Now I just have to wait for it to come off B/O.
Can’t wait to try it out, take care.
I’m a bit confused about this lens…
it renders a fisheye image in fx until which focal length?
I see fisheye renders at 8mm obviously, but from 11mm, it’s a nice and wideangle image. how are 9 and 10mm like?
Hi Saad,
Technically it’s always a fisheye render, but depending on how you use it you can make it appear less fishy. On an FX camera you at 8mm you have a fully circular image. As you zoom in the top and bottom of the circle get cropped more and more until you reach 15mm, when the images fills the entire frame. On a DX camera you never get a full circle, but starting at 11mm the image fills the frame as well. So the photos you see in this post that are full rectangular images at 11mm were shot on the DX D500. Hope that helps!
Josh
Lovely!!
I think I’m getting pulled into this lens, but I really don’t need the 8mm end. I love the 10.5DX and mastered Fisheyes with it, it never came off my D200! But now I need an FX fisheye.
I don’t think Nikon will be in a hurry to try and better this 8 to 15 with a prime!
Josh… Try RectFish for straightening, it’s the best de-fishing software available and it’s free from http://www.acapixus.dk/software/rectfish/ It looses the bare minimum of an image and with the centre of the frame on the horizon for landscapes anyone would be hard pushed to tell the shot was taken with a fisheye. (I’m not associated with it in any way b.t.w!)
Great photos! Love the new fisheye definitely makes me want to upgrade to the autofocus.
Hi Josh,
thanks for showing us your very stunning experimental results- the lens seems to be a good investment.
Is there a special incremental filter for pics like “Trees, Torres del Paine NP, Chile. Nikon D810. ISO64, f/11, 8mm, 1/100 sec.” within the lens or how did you shoot this one? Thank for an explanation
Hi Elfi,
The lens was a nice surprise indeed in terms of what it’s capable of in the landscape realm. No filters used in that shot. I simply got down low, stuck the camera into that clump of trees and pointed it straight up.
These are fabulous images from a fabulous lens. I had been considering purchasing the Sony A7riii whenever it comes out and building a collection of GM lenses, but after looking at what you have achieved with this lens I am seriously considering staying in the Nikon family and picking up whatever replaces the D810.
Thanks for the wonderful images.
Thanks, Harris! The Sonys are a bit smaller and lighter but I think Nikon is still winning in terms of lens selection, camera usability, and legacy.
I apologize for my ignorance, but how do you make the lens show a normal image? Is it done in post or what? I have never used one in 50 years of photography, but this lens looks very attractive and would fit some of the things I do. Thank you for the nice review.
Hi Steinar,
There are two ways to approach it: one is simply to apply a lens correction in post. Alternatively in the field you can point the center of the lens at the horizon and it will be straight. Or if you are shooting subjects without a clear horizon line then it can also be difficult to detect the fisheye effect. Hope that helps!
Josh
Great Pictures!!! They show the way to use a fish-eye!
The other side of the coin, Torres del Payne looks like a paradise for a photographer, it is close to torture to choose from the pictures taken!
Thanks Jose! Yes, TDP is an incredible spot for photography. Hope you have a chance to visit someday.
Very beautiful, thanks for reviewing!
Thanks for taking the time to look and comment, Catherine!
For years, the dream was to be a member of the Nikon family, but for technical reasons, did fall in Pentax’s lap.
The dream is still active, and the images included here suggested the feeling of a kitten licking its whiskers after drinking extremely tasty milk.
Haha! If that’s the case then I felt like a cat dropped in a bathtub of milk. A little overwhelmed at first, but surrounded by good stuff after I got used to it.
These are difficult lenses, since the line between artistic and “plain weird” is thin sometimes. Considering that the result is unnatural anyway, these lenses are a subject of study themselves. Every time I picked a strange lens, it was because I had the idea first (and got the lens afterwards, to implement the idea). But every time I bought a strange lens hoping that an idea would come, it ended up collecting dust.