Advice request: 20mm options

May 15, 2014
918
0
slclick said:
When I hear 20mm I think dearly to my brief stint with the Voigtlander Color Skopar. I wanted to love that solidly built little pancake but those edges....After the 40 and it's well deserved success I was hopeful for another 20 from ANYONE but there's been just pickle jars.

That is too bad you didn't like it. I love my little 20mm Voigtlander. It is just so compact It's hard not to toss it in the bag. I know it gets just murdered for it's softness in the corners, but in real world usage I've been more than happy with this lens. Something about it's rendering I really enjoy.

It was one of two lenses I took on a trip last year (Sigma 35mm Art was the other) and I just got back from a "fun" trip (aka photography was NOT important) to Punta Cana and to travel light I packed the Voigtlander, the shorty-forty, 85mm f/1.8, and a Fuji with the 23mm f/2.
 
Upvote 0
You're probably not hearing from too many Canon 20mm users because it's not very good. I bought the Canon 20mm f2.8 years ago when I was shooting film. It was never a great performer and if I needed really sharp images I'd rent a Canon 16-35mm f2.8 zoom from a local store in Manhattan. When I moved to digital I sold the 20, as I couldn't live with the sub-par image quality.
 
Upvote 0

slclick

EOS 3
Dec 17, 2013
4,634
3,040
Luds34 said:
slclick said:
When I hear 20mm I think dearly to my brief stint with the Voigtlander Color Skopar. I wanted to love that solidly built little pancake but those edges....After the 40 and it's well deserved success I was hopeful for another 20 from ANYONE but there's been just pickle jars.

That is too bad you didn't like it. I love my little 20mm Voigtlander. It is just so compact It's hard not to toss it in the bag. I know it gets just murdered for it's softness in the corners, but in real world usage I've been more than happy with this lens. Something about it's rendering I really enjoy.

It was one of two lenses I took on a trip last year (Sigma 35mm Art was the other) and I just got back from a "fun" trip (aka photography was NOT important) to Punta Cana and to travel light I packed the Voigtlander, the shorty-forty, 85mm f/1.8, and a Fuji with the 23mm f/2.

The soft corners were real world soft corners. I'm not talking forum pundits and brick wall shots. Funny thing, I took it to the Dominican Rep as well. My 135 was my most used lens.
 
Upvote 0

snappy604

CR Pro
Jan 25, 2017
681
640
I use the sigma 20mm 1.4 Art a significant amount for low light band shots on a crop (80D) camera body. The results a really good.

- not much distortion if you line up your planes, however I do have a crop so I am not likely pushing it as hard.
- its very sharp
- its not the fastest focusing in low light, but it is good enough to take moving band pictures at 1.4 in pubs....
- its heavy
- the front glass is curved and has a permanent lens cap. This limits the use of an ND or other type filters
- because the glass is curved sometimes you get flare depending on light source. It isn't often, but it is there.

just thinking re: distortion, I have to be very close to people to take their pictures... while not linear like architecture, distortion would give odd body shapes and I don't see that occurring, so seems well controlled.
 
Upvote 0