Fisheye vs Rectilinear on Nikon D70

Marc Rochkind
4-April-2006

Prompted by a recent thread on photo.net's Nikon forum, I was curious about the field of view of an 18mm rectilinear lens vs. a 16mm fisheye that's supposed to show 180° on 35mm film.

I had assumed that the 16mm fisheye would be the equivalent of a 24mm lens on a digital camera, but some Googling told me that I was wrong. The two shots below, comparing the 16mm fisheye to a zoom set at 18mm, tell the story. The difference in field of view is much wider than would be indicated by only a 2mm difference in focal length. The photos were taken with the camera mounted on a tripod and leveled. The camera was not moved while the lens was changed.

The EXIF data (also pasted on the photos themselves) is shown first, followed by the images.

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