The Widest 35mm Lens Ever Made - Nikkor 220° FOV

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]This might be the most insane lens Nikon has ever made. In 1972, this lens cost as much as a nice new car. If you're looking to pick one up these days, it'll cost you about the same as a nice family home on the outskirts of Tokyo.

[00:00:17]Hi folks, I'm Matt Granger and today I'm here with Model Georgia at the Nikon Museum in Tokyo. If you're a Nikon user, you're in the right place. I've been a professional Nikon shooter for over 15 years and we release new photography videos every week. Please subscribe and turn on notifications below. So today we're looking at what may be the most outrageous lens that Nikon has ever built in their 100 plus year history.

[00:00:42]The Nicor 6 mm f2.8 fisheye. First introduced in 1972 built for the Nikon Fmount and it captures a 220° field of view. So, it doesn't just see horizon to horizon. It sees behind itself. Just think of that. Like an ultra wide angle lens like a 12 mil may be catching a field of view like this or even like this. But this guy somehow is seen behind itself. So that means that the beams of light out here are being captured, bent, and sent at an acute angle back into the sensor. There's no mirrors. There wasn't computer AED design. It's just engineering optical genius that makes something like this even possible. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Nikon was pushing the boundaries of optical design. Scientific research, meteorology, aerospace, and industrial inspection. There was a real demand for extreme wide-angle coverage.

[00:01:44]This guy obviously wasn't made for your typical architecture or skateboard photographers. It was made for research institutions and government agencies, specialized imaging applications. It was built to order and the production numbers, they're not official, but I believe it was somewhere below 200 units made in total. The optical formula for this guy includes obviously multiple large diameter elements and specialized glass. The front element angle is so extreme that it physically extends beyond any kind of traditional lens hood that you could make for it. I mean, how can you put a hood on something that can see behind itself? Where would you put that? Also, you obviously can't attach filters because of the curvature. So, instead, Nikon engineered a built-in rotating filter turret at the rear of the lens that includes neutral density and color correction filters.

[00:02:47]The aperture ring sits mid barrel and obviously it's manual focus only. At the time of its release, this was the widest angle lens ever made for 35 mm photography. And more than 50 years later, nothing has surpassed its 220° field of view for full-frame 35 mm cameras. So, we're not talking about one of the widest. This is the widest lens ever made and it's also one of the heaviest lenses made for the Nikon Fmount at about 5.2 kg or 11 pounds. So that's about 1 kg per millimeter of focal length. Shooting with this I think counts as both a push and pull day for your upper body weight training. Now today we're going to be shooting it on a modern Nikon Z body using the FTOZ adapter. But whichever way you shoot it that way or using an F-mount camera, it's fully manual and fully mechanical.

[00:03:45]Okay, so I've stepped outside now. We're joined again by Georgia. We're going to do some crazy shots soon. I need fresh air to talk about this section. We're going to talk about pricing. In the 1970s, this lens cost around $8,500.

[00:03:58]Its act figures are hard to come by, but adjusted for inflation, you're talking at something like over $40,000 in today's money. This wasn't a routine lens purchase. Buying something like this required approval from your accountant, your bank manager, and your CFO. Of course, your CFO being your spouse. Whilst these rarely come up for sale, when they do, pristine examples are often asking six figures, so 100K and up. driven mostly by scarcity and collectibility rather than modern use cases. As I already mentioned, this guy goes beyond the hemisphere. Even by today's standards, no manufacturers producing a commercially available 35 mil SLR exceeding 220° of coverage. Optically, sure, modern lenses may be sharper from corner to corner, but no one is building anything nearly this extreme these days. And I think the reason it's fair to say this wasn't about practicality. It was about pushing boundaries. It was about Nikon proving what their engineers were capable of achieving. They already had a range of fish eyes, including an 8 mil 28 and a bunch of slower aperture ones, but they wanted a Halo product that this guy foreshadowed the other bonkers releases that Nikon went on to drop on us in the following decades.

[00:05:24]Interesting thing about this guy, I don't know if this is the only six mill configured like this, but unlike the standard, this one's been kind of mounted 90° rotated. So, normally this would be at the bottom, but on this one, it's actually on the side. I'm not sure why that is, but I just got told that as I was leaving. So, where actually is our connection point?

[00:05:45]Now, in a way, it doesn't make a difference because it's a circular fisheye.

[00:05:50]It gives a circular shape.

[00:05:55]Now, this is the moment of truth. I've never turned this on. Maybe you just stand in there. It's a wide angle, so you see how close you think you need to be.

[00:06:04]Okay, so straight up. This is just insanity.

[00:06:09]Now, I guess it's impossible. How would you know how wide this shot is? Um, come as close as you think until your head's going to be chopped off.

[00:06:20]>> Let's see. I'm going to challenge it a bit.

[00:06:23]>> Okay.

[00:06:24]>> Crazy, right? If that were the case. So, I'm going to actually take a photo of you now.

[00:06:28]>> Take off my jacket for this. You can see me better.

[00:06:33]>> Gorgeous.

[00:06:36]>> Stage two in the game is step to the side until you guess you're out of the shot.

[00:06:43]Yeah.

[00:06:44]>> Okay. And then let's see.

[00:06:50]How are we? Let me get a still. So, this was the first one where you stepped into the camera and thought your head might be chopped off.

[00:06:56]>> What the heck?

[00:06:58]>> And then the second one.

[00:06:59]>> Not even close.

[00:07:01]>> I'm in the shot still.

[00:07:02]>> How are you?

[00:07:03]>> And that's the tripod legs.

[00:07:04]>> Where? How are you in the shot? That's crazy.

[00:07:07]>> Because it sees behind itself. Oh my gosh.

[00:07:12]>> If we're going to have you do those extreme poses, just how close you can get, I don't even know cuz I haven't seen that.

[00:07:19]>> Far away from the left >> still. Yes.

[00:07:21]>> Oh my goodness. Okay, your turn. Let me see you.

[00:07:24]>> Okay, >> you're up to here.

[00:07:27]>> Okay. Yeah. So, if you come like I guess we don't want to breathe on it, but as close as your face can get to it.

[00:07:34]>> You're bit awkward, right?

[00:07:38]I think having legs wide open even is going to be like you see like because my feet are still in it, right?

[00:07:46]>> Yeah. Yeah. They're distorted though.

[00:07:58]>> Whoa.

[00:07:59]>> Wow. I'm ugly enough without that.

[00:08:01]>> No, don't say that about yourself. So, the cool shot I thought would be to set up a kind of like a music video type shot where we'll have the camera and me standing like this and a couple of LED panels lighting you and then we can shoot up into that corner of the building with you. I'll have the camera lower so you can kind of go over it kind of like do you remember? I think Culio had some film clips shot in this kind of way, but like the stills that I shared with you, I think that'll be super dramatic and cool to have the LED panels in the shot. So, I think that corner will work.

[00:09:04]Now, to be fair, this isn't an ideal portrait lens, but if you find yourself having to shoot, say, the NBA All-Star team or the semi-finalist of a sumo competition at close quarters, the 6 mill may do the trick. I've just put up my new guide to headshot portraiture, which was almost 5 years in the making.

[00:09:23]It features seven different models, all with different requirements for their images, a wide variety of shooting situations, equipment used, different lighting setup, and plenty of different challenges overcome. You can check out the new course over at learn.mmatgranger.com.

[00:09:40]The link is in the description below.

[00:09:42]Now, I'll be honest. I had a whole script for today based on what I know about these lenses. And what I was prepared to say was, now filming on my Z8 using 8K, we can crop in and get a usable frame. Yeah, it's a little bit distorted, but the reality is in modern times, there's not really a use case for a lens like this. But having just done those portraits, there was actually some pretty cool results there. I've never gotten that effect before. The only thing that well I can't say the only thing that would hold me back from getting this cuz it's $100,000 but would be it is so niche. So once a year it would be really cool to be able to get some super ultra wides. You know 10 or 8 mil fisheye even doesn't get you anywhere near the crazy results this one does. Like I'm I'm touching the lens here and it probably still looks like I'm not even that close. You just need the perfect storm vin diagram of, you know, a retired dentist who also shoots skateboard photography who's got his 401k. He needs to invest in a new toy.

[00:10:42]That's cool. Lee, put one foot as far out as you can. Still in >> it. Still is. Of >> course it still is. It's kind of interesting how the circle moves. So it's still a meter of the video.

[00:10:58]I guess it doesn't matter which format of video I'm in, right? Because it's a circle.

[00:11:10]Okay, that's a little test we have to do to show the perspective distortion.

[00:11:15]Actually, that's really fun.

[00:11:38]So, why does this matter? because it represents a time when optical engineers are allowed to go to the edge or in this case beyond. The 300 F2 in our last video was about pushing speed. The 6 mil 28 is about pushing physics. This is what happens when you put every tool, every technique, and every ounce of optical engineering expertise into one lens. Just imagine if today Nikon started offering lenses with completely bonkers specifications that cost $50,000 that you had to order and wait a year for it to be handmade, then come to Japan for a special ceremony to receive it in a red velvet line box. The comment section would lose their mind about Nikon being out of touch and not knowing their consumers anymore. But on the other hand, it would be pretty fantastic. There's plenty of rich people in Japan and around the world who are collectors who would love to get a oneofone lens and demonstrating what Nikon are truly capable of in 2026 with all of their modern computer aided design and technology. I think it would be pretty exciting to see. If you love Nikon history, folks, this lens isn't just rare. It's a time capsule. It's a physical reminder of a period when Nikon wasn't just responding to the market.

[00:12:56]they were pushing and driving the market. A time when engineers were allowed to chase ideas to their absolute extremes, even if those ideas only served a handful of people on the entire planet. I'm just sure somewhere in the 1970s, right, there must have been some executive in the boardroom saying, "Uh, is it really wise to be building a 220° fisheye that weighs over 5 kg and costs more than a car? Is that the best use of our resources?" Thank goodness the Nikon board ignored that guy and did it anyway because lenses like this along with the 300 F2 and other legendary ones like the 1200 to,700 mil zoom and the remarkable range of smaller fish eyes are what give Nikon one of the most extraordinary optical archives in photographic history. This lens wasn't built because it was practical. It wasn't built because it would be popular. It was built because it was possible. And in that mindset, that willingness to push physics just to see what happens, what we can create, that's what makes Nikon's history so compelling. So, if you're a Nikon user, start planning your pilgrimage to the Nikon Museum. I'll have full details of how you can book your trip below. It's completely free.

[00:14:10]And if you are a Nikon user, check out my expert setup guide. It goes through not archival pieces, unfortunately, but it runs you through everything you need to know to get the most out of your modern equipment for your style of shooting. Every Z camera is covered. You can see full details of that below as well. Thank you so much to Georgia for joining us today. If you're in Tokyo and looking for a local model, she's been so fantastic today. You can see all of her contacts below. Let me know any questions. And I have to finish. I may sound like a sickopant, but huge thanks to Nickon Japan for letting us get access to these archival super rare pieces. The staff have been so friendly, so helpful, and understanding. I'm running an hour over time. I've been like a kid in a candy shop today. It's been an absolute bucket list opportunity. So again, thank you. You've been wonderful. I couldn't have done it with someone who wasn't a professional and patient and everything you've been today. So thank you so much. I'm rambling. I'll see you guys later.

[00:15:08]Please make sure you subscribe to see more fantastic Nikon content in future.

[00:15:13]>> Bye.