The Nikkor 20mm f2.8D lens is an excellent wide angle lens for a number of tasks, such as landscape, interior and artistic close-ups. It features CRC (Close-Range Correction), where the lens elements move to better focus upon close objects.
It's small and very light, so it packs easily in your camera bag. There's no excuse for the serious Nikon photographer not to have one of these at your fingertips to bring home that special photo. Many have a 24mm or 28mm. There's special things you can do with a 20mm that's worth carrying it around.
Be sure to pick up the HB-4 bayonet lens shade and the Nikon 62mm L37C ultraviolet filter. The Nikon filter is very thin, eliminating the vignetting that occurs with other third party filters.
Ultra-Wide Angle Photography - Perspective and placement
Photographing using an ultra-wide angle lens takes practice. Since it is a very wide angle lens, you can readily see that parallel lines tend to converge upon a point in the distance. In art, it's called the vanishing point. Vanishing points are the basis of one-point, two-point and three-point perspectives. Your view of an object changes on whether it's drawn with one or two points where the parallel lines converge at the horizon. Take a look at this page for a refresher.
An example of this can be seen when viewing the false ceiling within a given office area. The parallel lines that make up the false ceiling seems to converge upon a point off in the distance. If the camera is tilted instead of held absolutely level, the lines seem even more exaggerated. Therefore, if you take photos of interiors, city landscape or other man-made settings containing straight lines, you may want to hold the camera absolutely level -- or at the very least, have one side of your camera horizontal and parallel to the horizon.
You can see these effects in the two computer room photos below. The gridlines of the false ceiling and the false floor makes an excellent ruler for this example.
Notice how there seems to be two vanishing points in this photo -- one to the right about a fifth of the way in from the right, and one off to the left out of view. Each object within this photo is about the same distance away, so there's no exaggeration of one object or another. Now, take a look at this one...
Notice how the lady is approximately the same height as the mainframe computer CPU and the rest of the equipment, however, with the apparent magnifying power of the 20mm, the near-end of the CPU is much larger than the height of the photo! It's all a matter of perspective.
Interior
The 20mm is very nice for interiors, as it's 94 degree coverage allows you to stand in one corner of a room and get a perspective of everything that's happening. It's great for documenting the layout and feel of a event, so you can then mingle through the event and have a photo to explain to others how the place was arranged and what kinds of things were happening.
For example, here's a look at the Gala Celebration for the Miss Universe 1998 pageant. Click on the photo if you want to see more.
Here we have some guys working on a radio repeater which is tucked away in a converted artillery gun emplacement within the rim of Diamond Head crater. It's a small, cramped place, but the 20mm gets everyone in the picture nicely. If you look closely at the ceiling, you can see the lines made by the wooden form used for the concrete pour. Notice that even if the lines are parallel, they seem to head off towards a common vanishing point towards the left -- a subtle example of one point perspective.
If you're close to the subjects and using an ultra-wide lens, you should keep the camera level with the person's face to minimize distortion. To keep these guys faces clear, I had to keep the camera level with their heads, and let go of the rest of the perspective, especially their legs, which seem to be bowing away from the upper torso.
If you look closely at Don's head (the person at the far left), you can begin to see the distortion caused by placing a person near the corner of a wide angle lens. It's seem as if his head is made of rubber, and is being stretched and pulled towards the upper left corner. That distortion is normal and is to be expected, so you should plan for it in the photo by avoiding placing people near the edge and bringing your people closer to the middle.
This effect is visible in a 35mm lens, and becomes more pronouced with wider lenses. If you place a person's head near the corner of a 28mm lens, you can readily see this effect. As the lens becomes wider, the affected area creeps in from the edges and begins to work its way towards the center of the photo. With the 20mm, only about the center half of the photo is usable for filming people close up. Keep the camera level with the person's head and use the center portion of the lens. Those are the tricks behind this full body photo below in a crowded, moving environment.
These flash photos was taken with the Nikon SB-26 flash, which has a flip-down attachment for spreading the flash coverage up to 18mm. It's very handy for taking these types of shots. Just keep in mind that it uses a lot of the flash's power, so you won't get much range beyond 20 feet or so.
Outdoors
For outdoors, it's nice for putting the horizon about 1/4 of the way down from the top edge of the scene, keeping the camera level with the horizon, and showing a broad landscape...perhaps with an item of interest in the immediate foreground. Here's an example of the view from the peak of Diamond Head crater:
And, another example of using an ultra-wide for an outdoor scene.
The clarity and detail of both the foreground and background makes this an exciting photo.
Here's another write-up on other Nikkor 20mm lenses. I hope this short write-up has inspired you to take another look at getting a Nikkor 20mm for your camera bag.
since June 9, 1997
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