Nikkor 16mm 1:2.8 D Fisheye

Today I remembered my lens, which I use rather sporadically. However, once I put it in my bag, I tend to carry it around for several days. It may sound a bit strange, but I often use it as a travel lens. Before I explain why, let me first tell you how and why I bought it.

I once read that the well-known American photographer Andrew D. Bernstein often used this lens to shoot NBA games. Later I came across another article where a different photographer mentioned that he used almost exclusively this lens for sports photography. At first, I was a bit surprised, since for some reason I had always associated this lens with a more artistic kind of photography. I decided to take a risk and buy it, hoping it would live up to my expectations. What additionally convinced me was its small size and low weight. The lens doesn’t take up much space, it’s relatively light, and it always fits somewhere in the bag.

Coming back to why I use it as a travel lens apart from what I’ve already mentioned, there are two reasons that often persuade me to take it. I want to emphasize that these are my personal thoughts about the lens, not in any way professional opinions. Besides, there are already so many articles about this lens that I don’t feel like repeating well-known facts.

The first reason is the ability to capture scenes in those narrow alleys where standard lenses struggle. Despite the often barrel-shaped distortion, you can really feel the closeness of the place. The second thing that positively surprised me is the ability to photograph people up close in an almost unnoticeable way. How does it work? The extremely wide angle of the lens allows you to shoot your main subject while “accidentally” capturing people within the wide frame people who are completely unaware they are being photographed. As a result, they look more natural and don’t feel cornered by someone pointing a camera at them. In the photo below, for example, I was taking shots just 2–3 meters away from cyclists. They only glanced briefly, assumed the lens was aimed at the mountains, and quickly stopped paying any attention to me.

This accidental discovery later led me to use the lens for street photography, where I was able to capture the city bustle in a way that made viewers feel as if they were actually there.

Is this a lens for everyone and for every occasion?

In my opinion no. For an amateur like me, shooting with this lens feels like riding without hands. The lens doesn’t forgive any mistakes. In principle, you have to compose the photo in such a way that no later cropping is necessary. The barrel distortion is intentional, and the fact that straight lines bend outward from the center of the frame is completely normal. Unfortunately, this brings many limitations when editing photos. If you crop one side, the picture will immediately look odd curved lines of buildings on one side won’t harmonize with the straight structures on the other.

If you crop proportionally, you lose what is most beautiful about this lens: the fisheye effect. That means if you want the photo to turn out well, you have to compose it almost perfectly in camera. You also constantly have to keep in mind that the image will be distorted, so to get the intended effect you need to anticipate how the final result will look. I think this makes the lens push the photographer into greater involvement and deeper thinking.

Below is an example where, theoretically, the photo was framed correctly. But…

In the upper corners, you can see part of a building on my side of the street. Okay, let’s pretend it was intentional. :) However, even though the gate is almost directly in front, the fact that the building on the right is shorter than the one on the left disrupts the composition.

In post-processing I was able to almost restore a correct perspective through cropping and perspective correction, but the photo lost a lot of atmosphere—and it’s still not perfect.

Another issue is that you constantly have to check whether you’re accidentally photographing your own feet, whether your shadow (even at noon) has crept into the frame, and so on.

So how do you make a shot that isn’t just another unnatural photo that quickly tires the viewer? I think the only way is through practice. After a while, the photographer’s brain switches into a mode where all these difficulties are eliminated intuitively, and you can finally focus on what’s most important the composition.

That’s when the photos start to become interesting and stand out. Still, you have to remember that the fisheye effect can quickly bore the viewer, so the images really need to have a solid concept behind them.

Shooting against the light.

Surprisingly, even though the lens is not new, it handles backlight quite well. Of course, contrast drops a bit, since its coatings don’t protect as well against flares as modern lenses, but in my opinion, the photos still have their own character and are at least decent.

Final thoughts

Is this a lens for a beginner photographer? In my humble opinion, no. With such a lens, framing has to be practically perfect every time. When shooting in the city, where the number of straight lines is countless, the risk of making mistakes is very high.

Unless...
Unless we simply do not worry about the mistakes that will inevitably occur at the beginning and instead focus on improving our skills and technique.

A few sample photos:

D610 1/125s 1:5

D610 1/125s 1:4

D610 1/40s 1:5.6

D610 1/400s 1:10