NiSi launches ultra-wide 16mm f/2.8 prime for medium format systems
NiSi’s 16mm f/2.8 brings a 12.6mm equivalent, 118-degree view and f/2.8 speed to GFX and XCD, a rare combo for architecture, astro and interiors.
NiSi’s new 16mm f/2.8 matters because medium format usually makes you choose: go wide, or go fast, but rarely both. That changes here for Fujifilm GFX and Hasselblad XCD shooters, who get an ultra-wide prime with a 35mm equivalent focal length of 12.6mm and a 118-degree diagonal field of view.
The pitch is obvious to anyone who has tried to shoot architecture, interiors, landscapes or night skies with medium format glass. NiSi is framing the lens as the fastest ultra-wide prime currently available for the system, and that is the real hook. Hasselblad’s XCD 20-35E is its widest native X System lens and tops out at f/3.2 at 20mm. Fujifilm’s GF20-35mmF4 R WR is a 16-28mm-equivalent ultra-wide zoom, but it stays at f/4 across the range. Hasselblad’s XCD 4/28P is lighter at 245 grams and equals 22mm, but it is also an f/4 lens. Against that lineup, NiSi’s f/2.8 aperture is the spec that actually opens new shooting options.
The lens is not just about speed on paper. NiSi says the 16mm f/2.8 weighs 835 grams and uses a 16-element, 12-group optical design with three aspherical elements and four ultra-low-dispersion elements. It has an 180-degree focus throw, weather sealing and NiSi’s SA+ coating. The company is pushing edge-to-edge performance, coma control, reduced flare and low chromatic aberration, which points to a lens built for hard jobs, not novelty wide-angle party tricks.
That focus makes sense given NiSi’s recent large-format push. In April 2026, the company announced its 65 Prime 16mm T2.9 cinema lens as the first lens in a new 65 Prime series, with an image circle close to 65mm in diameter and coverage for ARRI ALEXA 65 / 265 open gate. NiSi also showed that lens at NAB 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. The stills lens looks like part of the same playbook, borrowing cinema-era optical ambition and turning it into a still-photo tool.
For medium-format photographers who have been waiting for a wider, brighter alternative to the usual slow primes and zooms, this is the kind of release that actually changes the conversation. A 16mm f/2.8 on GFX or XCD does more than widen the frame. It makes those huge scenes less of a compromise.
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