5 legendary monster wide-angle lenses – from water-filled glass to U$160,000 fisheyes

In an earlier article, I talked about a few of the incredible monster ultra-telephoto lenses that have been made over the years.  So I though it only fair to take a look at some of the more unusual, and certainly fascinating, ultra wide-angle lenses.  This is not a complete history of ultra-wide development, but rather a look at five of the most intriguing examples to come along.

It really all began in 1859 when Thomas Sutton patented his “Patent Panoramic Water Lens” . It was the first true, wide-angle lens and was produced in very limited quantities, starting the next year. It consisted of two thick flint glass lenses with concentric surfaces that enclose a hollow space filled with crystal clear water. The result was a lens with a field of view of 100° to 120°, depending on plate size, and an aperture of f/12. It was never sold as a separate lens, as it required an expensive curved glass plate. Thus is was sold as part of a complete camera and fewer than 30 are thought to have been made. Far fewer survive today.

12 curved glass negatives and two of the panoramic cameras with the lenses that took them are in the collection of Museums Victoria, in Australia. Another is on display at the Museum of the History of Science, in Oxford.)

Just a couple of years later, in 1862, the American firm of Harrison & Schnitzer released its “GLOBE” with a field of view claimed to be 92°, although 80° is somewhat more realistic.  It had a maximum aperture of f/16, though again, f/30 was more realistic; over-claiming in advertising is nothing new! It was, however, the first ultra-wide to be sold as a separate lens.  The ‘globe” name came from the fact that if the two outer surfaces were continued and joined, they would form a sphere.

In 1950, the French firm of Pierre Angénieux introduced the first retrofocus (inverted telephoto) lens for SLRs a 35mm f/2.5. Its design allowed fitting a wide-angle lens on an SLR without interfering with the moving mirror. The term “retrofocus” rapidly became a generic description for any inverted telephoto optical design, and all his life Pierre Angénieux would regret not having registered “retrofocus” as a trademark.

Regular wide-angle lenses (meaning lenses with a focal length shorter than the format’s diagonal, that produce a wider field of view) need to have their rear elements close to the film or sensor. However, SLR cameras require that lenses be mounted far enough in front of the film to provide space for the movement of the mirror, which is about 40mm for a typical 35mm SLR, whereas in non-SLR cameras the rear element can be as close as 10mm. The use of an inverted telephoto (retrofocus) design solved this awkward problem. Such lenses are easily recognizable as they use very large negative front elements to force back-focus distances great enough to ensure clearance and thus giving them a distinct look.

 Designed by Erhard Glatzel at Carl Zeiss in 1966, the Zeiss 15mm f/8 Hologon was introduced in 1969 as a fixed-focus lens integrated into the Zeiss Ikon Contarex Hologon camera. It offered a groundbreaking 110° to 120° angle of view without fish-eye distortion. 

Each lens came with a dedicated special filter to compensate for the Hologon design’s inherent vignetting.  Such a wide-angle view, combined with its three-element design, leads to inherently uneven illumination.  The filter is a 4x centre-weighted neutral density (ND) graduated filter, which compensates for about two stops of light falloff at the frame edges by darkening the center while allowing more light near the edges. The drawback is that it increases the effective aperture to a maximum of f/16.

For a short while, there was a small cottage industry among the very best camera repairmen to remove the Hologon from its camera and put it into a custom mount for the Leica M series of cameras. Perhaps fewer than a dozen or so, were made this way.  This came to an abrupt halt when Zeiss stopped production of the Hologon and its camera (it seems due to slow sales) and, with a contract from Leica in hand, put the last 225 Hologons into Leica M mounts. This small number makes it one of the rarest of Leica lenses.

The amazing thing about the Hologon, is that no matter which camera it is on, its angle of view is so wide, the photographer is in danger of getting his or her fingers in the photo, just holding the camera!

In 1975, Nippon Kogaku K.K. (now Nikon) introduced what would become the ultimate wide-angle lens: the 6mm f/2.8 Fisheye Nikkor, for their Nikon F camera.

With a 5.2 kg (11.5 lbs) heft and a 220° field of view, it was intended for scientific use, and was loosely based on the Beck SKY of 1923. This incredible lens could actually see behind itself! The lens was manufactured only to special order, and just 56 were made. (You can see one where I saw one... in the George Eastman House museum, in Rochester, New York.)

For what it’s worth, when the 6mm f/2.8 Fisheye Nikkor was released, it cost around $6,000 (or about $27,000  in today’s dollars), a bargain by today's standards. In 2010, one appeared on eBay with an asking price of $34,000. In 2014, another (some say the 2010 lens being sold again) was sold by a UK auction house for an eye-watering £100,000, or approximately US$160,000!

There have been a few other notable wide-angle lenses, such as Sigma’s 21-35mm f/3.5-4 - the first superwide-angle zoom lens for 35mm SLRs made back in 1979.

But, since the mid-1970s, newer wide-angle lenses may have become smaller, lighter, cheaper, or sharper, but in the way of designs, there has been little new, under the sun.

Check out the best fisheye lenses you can buy today