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THE DIGITAL SOAPBOX OF ANDY CLEAVENGER

10.5mm AF DX FISHEYE

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This is Nikon’s DX fisheye. It is designed specifically for Nikon’s digital bodies with a 1.5X crop (which is all of them, except for the recently announced D3).

There’s not a whole lot more that can be said about it, really. Either you like the fisheye effect, or you don’t. Lots of pros look at fisheyes with disdain because they see it as trendy and somewhat of a crutch. I do agree that it is easy to fall in love with it at first, and as such, come to depend on it too heavily. But that doesn’t mean it should be completely trashed. I like my fisheye and always intend to keep one, but I’m not a heavy user of it when shooting for myself, because I find it just doesn’t fit my personal style very well. For me fisheye has two functions: 1) setting the scene 2) making things silly. These are really only needs that I have when working.

One unique trait that is worth mentioning about this lens is the color and contrast that it delivers. Nikon’s fisheyes (both the this one and the 16mm AF D) are, without a doubt, the most contrasty lenses (in a good way) that I own. This lens nearly always delivers images that require no manipulation after the fact to recover contrast and saturation. I wish all of my lenses were like this.

Of the two fisheyes I probably like the 16mm more. For whatever reason, it just seems to have a more impressive field of view and a stronger fisheye effect (that might be in my head though). But this one is your only option for digital fisheye, so don’t worry about comparisons. Besides, it’s still excellent.