Advice on good compromise wide-angle

[baervan]

Hi there,
Im gonna go in Iceland in May for a bunch of days so I wanted to get myself a wide angle, I was thinking < 20mm.

The problem is Im tight on budget and I wanted to spend max 500 eu/$, also Im full frame.

As far as I know the only cheap solution is the Samyang 14mm 2.8, but Id consider it as last resort due to the manual focus.

Any advice on this?

 

[JoeKerslake]

What are you gong to be shooting? Wildlife? Landscapes?

On a 6D?

 

[candyman]

I assume you go for the landscape.
If you stick to f/2.8 and do not want to go with MF, then it may become difficult - even when looking for an occasion
However, you may find an occasion Canon 17-40 for about 500 to 549 euro. The 16-35 f/4 IS is better but out of price range. The 17-40 is not bad at all but preceeded by better quality in the corners. That may bother you for landscape

 

[scyrene]

I have the Samyang and it's a great lens. For landscape work, manual focus isn't so bad - also, if you're stopping down, a lot of the scene will be in focus anyway. It's a tough little lens with good image quality. The only other downside aside from no AF is the odd distortion, but you can get lens profiles in Lightroom etc. that clear it up fine.

 

[Loswr]

Double your budget and get the 16-35/4L IS, or go for the Samyang/Rokinon 14/2.8. It's a very good lens, and MF with an ultrawide isn't terribly difficult.

 

[gqllc007]

Dont let the MF scare you off...I have the Rokinon 14mm 2.8 and it is almost always set to infinity at f/8 or f/11 and for landscape everything is in focus....awesome lens for the price I paid $269 US

 

[baervan]

Thanks guys, I'll need to think hard about the Samyang/Rokinon, even if I am going there for landscapes, I wonder if in other situations it could be tricky to use. But I guess in terms of quality you are getting more than what you pay for.

I wonder why nobody ever hit that segment with a cheap autofocus prime, Im thinking a 15 or 16mm prime even at f4. Like it would be good if Canon came up with such lens in their new shorty primes line like the 35mm IS.

 

[martti]

A word of warning about the Rokinon: It has a learning curve as it is fully manual. You might have troubles focusing and exposure can bring surprises also. It also has quite an amount of distortion that is not the pixel peeper flavor of distortion but real and visible. You can get unbelievable pictures with it.

My recommendation would be the EF 20mm f/2.8. It is not a great lens but it focuses and exposes automatically, you can use filters and it does not cost you all that much.

This one I took yesterday with the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 at f/11, 1/200, 200 ISO

This one is with the EF 20 mm f/2.8, too many raindrops on the front element...

 

[JoeKerslake]

A word of warning about the Rokinon: It has a learning curve as it is fully manual. You might have troubles focusing and exposure can bring surprises also. It also has quite an amount of distortion that is not the pixel peeper flavor of distortion but real and visible. You can get unbelievable pictures with it.

My recommendation would be the EF 20mm f/2.8. It is not a great lens but it focuses and exposes automatically, you can use filters and it does not cost you all that much.

This one I took yesterday with the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 at f/11, 1/200, 200 ISO

This one is with the EF 20 mm f/2.8, too many raindrops on the front element...

The filters and holder are massive though!

 

[Djaaf]

For your budget you have a few choices available :
1° Used 17-40 f/4L
2° Samyang 14mm f/2.8
3° Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5
4° Used Tokina 16-28 f/2.8
5° Tokina 17-35 f/4


If you can extend your budget a bit, you may be able to do as I did and go for the Sammy + a Voigtlander 20 f/3.5. That makes a good UWA travel combo and I was able to get both for roughly 640€ (289€ for the Sammy and 350€ for the Voigt (used) ).
Both are manual focus, but the Voigt has electronic aperture control and focus confirm.
You can also glue a chip on the Sammy to get programmable Exifs and focus confirm (it's a bit of a pain to set up, though, but there's a thread somewhere in here where I helped someone else do it).

For IQ, Sammy is worlds ahead of the 17-40, but the 17-40 is a lot more useable on day to day usage.
The Voigtlander is between the two. Quite the same IQ-wise than the 17-40, worse than the Sammy, a lot smaller than both It's manual focus, but electronic aperture and focus confirm in the OVF. Same thing for aperture, it's also between both.

The Tokina 16-28 seems a bit better than the 17-40 IQ-wise, but it's also 2x heavier and has a bulbous front element. So no filters. It's still not as good than the Sammy. AF is also not USM, so a bit on the noisy side (not that slow, though, consigering the very short throw for UWA lenses...).

I don't know anything on the Tokina 17-35 f/4 though, so i'll let you look it up.

And for the last word, I personnally favor the Voigtlander 20mm most of the time. That lens is a real pleasure to use and it doesn't disappoint on IQ. (and filters in 52mm are very cheap. )

Djaaf.

 

[martti]

Adorama and Amazon are selling the EF 20mm f/2.8 at 489 dollars. Voigtländer costs 50 dollars more.

 

[Djaaf]

Yeah, sorry, completely forgot about the Canon 20 f/2.8.
Thing is, I've read pretty much everywhere that it had horrible field curvature and generally crappy optics.
And since i had already sold a UWA lens a few years back because I personnally hate field curvature (give me vignetting, CA or flare... i'll even take coma and astigmatism before field curvature... ), I just didn't seriously considered it.

Djaaf.

 

[martti]

To have such a strong opinion about field curvature would indicate that you spend a lot of time photographing flat surfaces at a defined distance at maximum aperture?

How to recognize field curvature and work with it, here is an article on the subject:
http://phototechmag.com/field-curvature/

My hero 8) Ken Rockwell has kindly published the data of all Canon wide angles on his site:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/ultrawides-compared.htm

 

[Aichbus]

I'd get the EF 24 IS. 24 mm is sufficient for most shots and if you need to go wider, just take several shots and stitch them together, for instance with Microsoft ICE. I do the all the time.

 

[Khufu]

Yo! My only sub-24mm FF lens is the discontinued Tamron 17-35mm f/2.8-4... and I reeeally like it! Lots of general user reviews online are positive though some pixel peepers don't love the corner sharpness wide open etc - but this is a rarely considered lens that goes cheap-as-chips and produces lovely images at a wide aperture for relatively few pennies, like $200-300/euros/pounds?

It does get a bit of flare in direct light but it's pretty, not messy - ha
Do consider it, I've never known a real world user to not love it, only whiny internet cretins who tell you that you need a $3,000 lens

 

[martti]

HERETIC!

 

[Khufu]

Here's some Tamron 17mm shots from around Summer 2012 using cheap AGFA film (from Poundland) and a cheap eBay ND/Grey Grad filter - scanned at around 2 Megapixels at ASDA (Walmart)...

The 5D III image plane is large enough to have filters, even at 77mm, noticeably "vignette"/block light from the corners more so than on these scans though... But for me, on this lightweight, modern Rebel film camera with stupid-vivid AGFA film this was ace! It's also lovely on the 5D III

 

[martti]

Frankly, I do not understand anything you are saying but I hope you are having a good time with your Rebels from Agfanistan.

 

[Khufu]

I shot that rebel... It's been a while, maybe I'll shoot it again! It's a little early to be drinking here but give me a few hours and I'm sure I can diminish my communicative skills greatly!

 

[Djaaf]

To have such a strong opinion about field curvature would indicate that you spend a lot of time photographing flat surfaces at a defined distance at maximum aperture?

Nopes, but I don't spend all my time photographing subjects that are nicely curved along the field curvature either.

That's why I hate that aberration. I do not control what's in focus and what's not as precisely as I can do with a flat focus plane (where all you need is your DoF and a rough estimate of the distance between the things you want in focus).
Add to that the fact that for each lens that have some, the curvature is different, and it's just a mess to manage. So you either end with pictures with blurry parts that don't reflect what you wanted or you shoot at f/16 to f/20 to overcome that. Since I don't like any of those options, I tend to buy lenses that have a focus plane as flat as possible.
And since the quality of the rear screen or the OVF is far from enough to diffrenciate between in focus and slightly out of focus, I generally become aware of the issue long AFTER taking another picture is possible.

But that's just me. You are entirely entitled to your own opinion.

Djaaf.