AF-S Fisheye NIKKOR 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED lens Sample Photos & First Look

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.

Alabama Hills

Alabama Hills under a full moon, Nikon D810. ISO100, f/8, 8mm, 125 seconds.

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.

Torres del Paine NP, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Los Cuernos and Paine Grande at sunrise. Nikon D500. ISO100, f/4, 11mm, 1/200 sec.

The shoot was very loose, and the goal was simple: push the lens to its limits and discover its potential for landscape photography.

Skottsberg Blue, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Laguna Skottsberg, Nikon D810. ISO64, f/11, 15mm, 2.5 sec.

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.

Lago Huemul, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Glacier Huemul, Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina. Nikon D500. ISO100, f/4, 11mm, 1/2500 sec.

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.

Las Torres, Torres Del Paine NP, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Las Torres. Torres del Paine NP. Nikon D810. ISO64, f/8, 8mm, 1/250 sec.

Valley Frances, Torres del Paine NP, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Valley Frances, Torres del Paine NP. Nikon D810. ISO64, f/3.5, 8mm, 1/800 sec.

 

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.

Perito Mereno Glacier, Argentina. Nikon D810 + Nikkor. ISO64, f/4.5, 15mm, 1/5000 sec., Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Perito Mereno Glacier, Argentina. Nikon D810 + AF-S Fisheye NIKKOR 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED. ISO64, f/4.5, 15mm, 1/5000 sec.

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.

Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina

The exact same scene shot at 18mm on the AF-S NIKKOR 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G ED. Notice the massive increase in scale in the fisheye shot.

 

Single shot panorama of the Salto Grande waterfall in Torres del Paine NP. Nikon D810. ISO64, f/5.6, 15mm, 1/400 sec., Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Single shot panorama of the Salto Grande waterfall in Torres del Paine NP. Nikon D810. ISO64, f/5.6, 15mm, 1/400 sec., Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

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.

Twisted tree, Torres del Paine National Park, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Nikon D810. ISO100, f/11, 15mm, 1/30 sec.

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.

Ice cave, Perito Moreno Glacier, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Nikon D810. ISO64, f/11, 15mm, 1/320 sec.

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.

Bumblebee and flower macro, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Nikon D810. ISO64, f/4.5, 15mm, 1/800 sec.

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.

Solar halo, Torres del Paine NP, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Nikon D810. ISO64, f/8, 15mm, 1/125 sec.

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.

Forest, Torres del Paine, NP, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Nikon D500. ISO100, f/8, 11mm, 1/160 sec.

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:

Forest, Torres del Paine National Park, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Nikon D500. ISO100, f/4, 11mm, 1/80 sec.

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.

Mt Fitz Roy, Argentina. Nikon D500 . ISO100, f/4.5, 13mm, 1/3200 sec, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Mt Fitz Roy, Argentina. Nikon D500. ISO100, f/4.5, 13mm, 1/3200 sec.

Lago Grey, Torres del Paine NP, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Lago Grey, Torres del Paine NP. D500. ISO100, f/4.5, 11mm, 1/2000 sec.

Sunburst, Torres del Paine National Park, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Sunburst, Torres del Paine National Park. Nikon D500. ISO100, f/8, 15mm, 1/4000 sec.

Crevasses, Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina. Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Crevasses, Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina. Nikon D500. ISO11, f/4, 11mm, 1/1600 sec.

Misty morning at Laguna Torre, Los Glaciares National Park, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Misty morning at Laguna Torre, Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina. Nikon D500. ISO100, f/4.5, 14mm, 1/8 sec.

Grey Glacier, Torres del Paine NP, Chile, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Grey Glacier, Torres del Paine NP, Chile. Nikon D810. ISO64, f/8, 15mm, 1/2000 sec.

Trees, Torres del Paine NP, Chile. Nikon D810. ISO64, f/11, 8mm, 1/100 sec, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Trees, Torres del Paine NP, Chile. Nikon D810. ISO64, f/11, 8mm, 1/100 sec.

Forest sunburst, Torres del Paine NP, Chile, Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Nikon D810. ISO125, f/11, 15mm, 1/80 sec.

Lago de Los Tres, Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina. Nikon D810. ISO64, f/4.5, 15mm, 1/1250 sec. Nikon Nikkor 8-15mm Fisheye Sample Photos

Lago de Los Tres, Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina. Nikon D810. ISO64, f/4.5, 15mm, 1/1250 sec.

Kaila Pearson: Volleyballer

Volleyball portrait by Santa Cruz Photographer Joshua Cripps

The funny thing is, she isn’t even a volleyball player. A self-described “child of the water,” Kaila told me she loved everything having to do with the sea: swimming, surfing, and SUPing. But volleyball? Not her bag. But when a tall, beautiful, athletic blonde volunteers to pose on the beach for you in December, you don’t let a little thing like reality stand in your way.

Inspired by shots by the likes of Joel Grimes I wanted to create a dramatic sports portrait. Given that I had a ball and had access to the nets at main beach in Santa Cruz, volleyball seemed like a logical choice. Kaila and I had been trying to get together for a shoot ever since we first met back in October. Finally, a few days before Christmas when neither of us were busy and a storm front was rolling through Santa Cruz, we had our chance.

Nowadays the common practice to create a shot like this is to shoot the model in the studio where you can control all the elements, and then composite her into a background. But as much fun as compositing is, it’s usually a lot simpler to shoot the whole thing all at once, provided you have a good background of course. Which we did thanks to the clouds.
Volleyball net Santa Cruz, California

The first step in creating a photo like this is lining up the composition, so after I had positioned the net and the clouds in my frame how I wanted them, I had Kaila jump in front of the lens.

Volleyball portrait by Santa Cruz Photographer Joshua Cripps

Since at this point I was shooting using ambient light only Kaila was very dark, as expected. But that dark base was exactly what I need to start sculpting a portrait using my speedlights. Because of the storm it was actually quite windy that day and so I didn’t want to bother with big softboxes or octobanks. Instead my key light was simply a small softbox LTP positioned about head high at camera left. Maybe a bit harder light than I would normally use, but since I was going for drama I didn’t fuss.

Volleyball portrait by Santa Cruz Photographer Joshua Cripps

This was a good start but there’s nothing like a little rim light to separate your subject from the background and give the image a 3D feel. So I set up a bare speedlight behind Kaila off to the right and blasted it back at her to give that nice edging.

Volleyball portrait by Santa Cruz Photographer Joshua Cripps

Now that the lighting setup was dialed in it was time to get shooting. Kaila, trooper that she was, disrobed and set about looking like a badass despite the goosebumps. But as soon as she took her sweatshirt off it was clear we had a problem on our hands: the wind. It kept blowing her hair all over the place, up into the air, and into her face. (Note: this is one of those things that’s so easy to control in the studio).

Volleyball portrait by Santa Cruz Photographer Joshua Cripps

We quickly realized we weren’t going to be able to get a shot where we were thanks to the wind, so Kaila got dressed while I made a mirror-image of the lighting setup on the other side of the net. That way, Kaila would be able to look into the wind and have it blow her hair out behind her.

Volleyball portrait by Santa Cruz Photographer Joshua Cripps

Success! With the lighting design sorted and the wind working in our favor, Kaila ditched the sweatshirt again as I started snapping.

Volleyball portrait by Santa Cruz Photographer Joshua Cripps

From here it was just a matter of trying a couple of different poses and expressions until we got something we both liked. And here was the final shot:

Volleyball portrait by Santa Cruz Photographer Joshua Cripps

But remember that I said I wanted this to be a dramatic portrait. And while the straight-out-of-camera shot above is nicely lit and has some awesome clouds in the background, it doesn’t quite have the punch that I was going for. That aspect was added in Photoshop: some contrast adjustments, lots of dodging and burning, and some gradient maps later, this was the final result:

Volleyball portrait by Santa Cruz Photographer Joshua Cripps

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the process!

2013 Wall Calendar

A handful of 2013 calendars are still available. The remaining calendars’ covers were scratched slightly during transit so they are being offered at a deep discount.

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Single Calendars

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Bulk Calendars

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Calendars are 11″x17″ when unfolded, feature 12 of Josh’s favorite images, and show major US holidays.2013 wall calendar front cover

 

2013 wall calendar back cover

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Single Calendars

  • $6 each
  • $3.95 shipping (US only)

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Bulk Calendars

  • $6 each
  • $11 flat rate shipping

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Monterey Guitar Photography Shoot

Handmade acoustic guitar made by Lance McCollum, photographed by Josh Cripps and Diego Tabango

I’m undertaking an exciting new commercial project with my friend Diego Tabango to photograph film composer Mark Mancina’s astounding collection of beautiful hand-made guitars. Diego and I will be spending three days at Mark’s recording studio in Carmel, California in order to shoot an initial 20 guitars. This is looking to be a very fun, challenging, and educational project. Check out some of the initial results above and be on the look out for more cool guitar photographs coming soon.