Adam Trahan: Nikon 16mm f/2.8 Fisheye-NIKKOR AF-D

Nikon 16mm f/2.8 Fisheye-NIKKOR AF-D

s/n: 318708

Here are a few from a roll of Fuji Daylight and Flash. This is from my F6 just taking snapshots.

This group is from the Nikon D780 with a SB-800 with TTL metering

Wow, just wow! What a fun lens. I can tell I’m going to go through a phase with this lens as it is so easy to get a good photograph with it. That’s ok with me, photography should be fun yet, as much as I enjoy it and the look, I prefer reality, the reality of a rectilinear ultra wide lens. I did nail that with my first purchase or attempt, it’s all detailed below.

Pursuit of the Fish Eye Lens

This has been quite a journey for me. I’m dreaming of a fisheye lens again but this time I bought one. I’m laying on the couch, my L hand cramping from gripping the iPad while typing with my R hand’s index finger. It’s beaucoup early. My sheep a doodle woke me up and I let her out, then I feed her and now I’m laying on the couch. It’s a little cold in the house, perfect sleeping temp but I’m wide awake dreaming, I finally got my fisheye lens.

I’m also getting older, in a couple of weeks, I’ll be sixty five. In two years I want to retire. In this time frame, I have a mission to improve my photography. I want to record a specific set of images, imprint those in my mind, develop the imagery to recall. I’m going to paint and the pursuit of certain lenses is a part of my painting style development. Get those desert vistas firmly in my memories, imprint the petroglyphs, deeply embed them so that I can recall and paint my visions. Style development, recall, re-envision, interpret, build, paint.

I have the equipment and a little bit of experience to drive to where I want to go. I have plans, dreams and ideas of images in both digital and film. It’s the film I am honing sharp. The lenses I am collecting have everything to do with my plans to paint. I’m leaning in on the view, the ultra wide view and I want to go farther in, seeing the edges, bending them back, bringing the center in, accentuating that. I want to be in the fishbowl but free from constraint looking forward but seeing sideways. Snap the image, view the screen, do it again and out comes the F6, frame, release the shutter, slide the camera back to my hip, pull up the DSLR, repeat.

FAFO with digital, purposeful and premeditated with film.

This is the closing and final stage of that Fuck Around Find Out with ultra ultrawide lenses. Not really but I’ve figured it that way. I bought the 15mm rectilinear lens first after studying what I wanted. I took great pictures with it yet I’m coming to the conclusion that I also want a fisheye look, distortion but real. The 15mm does what I expect it too, it’s good and has its place but I want more farther inward but still retaining the wrap. I want that distorted look, not corrected. The lens I bought first was perfect. It has helped me define my view and I’m glad that I have it first because the lesson is vision.

When you know better you do better.

The fisheye is the first specific lens that I can remember being aware of. “How can I take pictures like that?” I thought to myself as I thumbed through Skateboarder magazine in the mid late seventies. I took photography class in my senior year of high school, my father had given me a Canon TX 35mm SLR with a 50mm kit lens. I began to take my own skateboarding pictures but they were not the same. I remember the beginnings of understanding the effects of lenses, fisheye lenses being really expensive. They looked weird too, a big bubble, lots of glass, how did they make them so perfect?

Nikon F3 and the not fisheye Nikkor lens

Later, in the 80’s, a friend of mine, a crazy soaring pilot talked about getting a wide angle rectilinear lens for taking pictures out of his powered hang glider so he could get the whole wing in view. That was my first experience with that term for a lens. It’s funny, I thought the two were the same, both are super wide angle lenses yet there is a subtle big difference.

My photo albums were forgotten by the digital shift. My film SLR morphed into a point and shoot, they were far too easy to get great shots, especially remote photography, hanging one on a wing pointed back for a selfie. Always in focus, the timing had to be right but that was about it, point and shoot. Later, telephone cameras finally got to the point where even my point and shoot was forgotten. My photo albums stayed skinny, got put in boxes, print photography was replaced by web based storage, web sites, digital cameras and the Internet killed print photos. It was a fade, a nearly permanent shift, digital cameras killed my photo albums. On the chance I wanted prints or an enlargement, I went to the drugstore and ordered one.

The fact that my telephone camera was so good, and anyone could take an excellent photograph drove me back to investigate film cameras. I wasn’t learning, the smart camera phone made me blind to the vision of creating photos. The wonderment of the latest cell phone camera just missed the mark for me. EVERYTHING wanted me to have the latest cell phone, social media, sharing, that cell phone camera divorcing me from my photographic lessons only to be replaced by selfies and staring at that screen. I began to understand that actual photographers had a distinct knowledge of vision, lenses, cameras and how to capture light and have much more skill and control over what they wanted to see. I want that skill too, the knowledge and I knew it was something that was going to help slow down time.

As we get older, time moves faster. We fall into repetitive habits. I wanted a camera to capture memories. A real camera with interchangeable lenses and I really wanted my own fisheye lens. I started asking friends that were photographers what camera I should buy? What brand? What format? Which lenses? I focused on lenses and learned that Nikon had a system of lenses that were forward and backward compatible. Old lenses that could be used on new digital cameras. New lenses that could be used on late model film cameras that by the way, Nikon had stopped making. No, film was not dead, there was a community however, you had to look for old gear to buy and use. Lots of research, lots of investigation, investment and often an old camera had issues or worse that was not disclosed prior to sale.

My old Canon TX had a two needle display for shutter speed and aperture settings. Match the needles and focus, press the shutter release and wind to the next frame. That’s what I remembered. I ended up buying the Nikon equivalent or there about, the FE2. It didn’t have a lens so I bought the best inexpensive lens I could, the Series E 50mm f1.8. I started buying old lenses and taking a lot of pictures with as many different lenses as I could. I kept researching and decided on an F3. Everyone wanted or owned an F3.

Buying old cameras takes lots of skill and or luck. Time, storage, use and maintenance become important considerations. For brevity, I’m skipping over many hard earned lessons. Each one of them are experiences that took time and money to get on the other side. Developing film is expensive and can have very disappointing results. Having spent so much time and energy, so much money on good equipment and travel only to receive my scans back that are splotchy?

WTF is this?

The owner of the film lab explaining it to me, “you have to embrace the imperfections of film photography…” I question myself, “Does he know what he is talking about?” My cameras have been checked out, no issues, I use fresh film and he doesn’t know why the development of color negatives has liquid looking splotches? I spent considerable sweat, money and time, only to have the development blotched? I’m supposed to embrace this. Oh fuck no. I can just imagine the lab person on their shift, not taking care of an exacting process of time, temperature, handling each step manually, no. I never had this issue when I took film in for processing in the past… I want a lab that professionals send their rolls to, a lab that does volume with machines that exact the solution temp and time.

I don’t want to embrace shit.

Wait, what does this have to do with a fisheye lens?

Everything.

If you are using a fisheye lens on a film camera, you are probably spending considerable time and money on your photography. You probably didn’t have to learn the processing lesson like I am. It took me about thirty rolls to learn. 30 rolls times $30-$50 per roll of film + $30 for each roll developed. So let’s do the math, $30 development + $30 per roll is $60 dollars each roll of 36 exposures. That’s about $2 each time I press the shutter release. Now take that $60 per roll times thirty rolls I’ve had developed and that’s $1,800 dollars in embracing imperfection. I am the asshole for giving the shop that kind of business?

I don’t think so,

“Adam, if you have a roll you must absolutely have every frame perfectly developed, send it off to a volume professional lab. We appreciate your business but please realize our process is done by hand and there can be a small amount of imperfections that do happen.”

Or something like that.

Done, been there, got the splotches, moving on.

Where was I?

Oh, film photography can be expensive and even a bit frustrating but you can learn to mitigate the negatives, literally…

Flash forward, I began saving for my fisheye lens, I already have the rectilinear glass.

I bought the Nikkor 15mm f3.5 AIS and started taking pictures with it. I love the lens but it’s not a fisheye. With that lens, straight lines remain straight. With a fisheye, straight lines are not. I wrote a piece about my discovery in Pursuit of the Fish Eye Lens. For comparison sake, I’ll add in photos from my D780 of the exact same picture from a tripod with each lens. This acquisition of this lens was not a mistake. It was an example of my progression. My knowledge and desire is spot on however, what I wanted and what I was calling for was slightly distorted, the rectilinear lens and a fisheye are neatly in the same category of wide angle lenses yet the fisheye is slightly distorted for effect where as the rectilinear lens is not. Anyway the rectilinear lens was some money. Where the fisheye lens, the 16mm f2.8 was a third of the cost.

Look, I don’t create my site for you. This is not a review page, I’m not monetizing it. This is a story written for me, by me, my notes and reflections. I think someone may find value or interest in it but it is written for fun from my experience. My presentation does not fit the format you see at other sites. I do this for me. I create these pages and share my experiences as a way to check my own growth.

A rectilinear 15mm ultra wide angle and a 16mm fisheye lens are both in the ultra wide category yet both can be described as effect lenses. Most photographers won’t use them everyday. Choosing to use one is for the effect it will create. Both are excellent for the close up wide angle I want for my petroglyph photography. As far as skateboarding, I have to take both to the skatepark or an empty swimming pool and shoot some photos, I want to see if the future is still primative.

I want that capsule picture that is in my minds eye. It’s already there. Just like the picture below.

I did find the lens I want. This one is not a manual focus lens but I can use it that way on an old manual focus camera if I wanted to. This lenst has a specific drive system that focuses the lens mechanically from the camera. My digital film camera, the D780 was chosen partially because it will focus this series of lens. It is truly a lens junkies digital camera in that it will accept and utilize the features in a broad variety of Nikon/Nikkor lens. The F6 which is Nikons pinnacle of film cameras also can operate a wide variety of lenses, fully capable of utilizing all the abilities of this lens.

The Nikon 16mm f/2.8 Fisheye-NIKKOR AF-D is the fisheye that I’ve been looking for. It is an ultra wide lens. I might even use it on my manual focus camera, the FE2 that I previously mentioned.

Whenever I get a new lens, I already have pictures in mind that I will take. When I bought the Nikkor 15mm f3.5 AI-S, I had this picture in my head. I just had to drive ten hours to get there and hike the twenty minutes to stand and compose the picture at the right time of day, the right light, camera settings, you get the idea. I had this image in my head before taking it. After getting back home, taking the roll in for dev/scan (luckily I didn’t have to embrace any imperfections) I had the epiphany, I had taken my first photo that was exact as I wanted. Yesss! First milestone. I had it enlarged and framed.

Rochester Panel ~ Nikon F3 Nikkor 15mm f3.5 AIS - f8

The story of that picture is in the link above.

I’m hoping to have an epic story behind the fish eye lens. I can think of a few good photographs to take on the Dine’ reservation or of Hopi archeology.

So let’s see what the post man brings me in a few days…