Wide angle lenses?
- Thread starter Pskhaat
- Start date
articulate
Expedition Leader
Ah! Wide angle!pskhaat said:
I find that when I have a shot framed up and ready to fire off, I want to go just a little bit wider. I have a 19mm that I wish was a 14mm or 10mm. Let's insert a disgusting man joke: I keep wanting it shorter and shorter. So, I'd suggest looking for the widest wide angle possible. Well, aside from going with a fisheye. lens. Also, I don't really think a "fast" lens is necessary with wide angle. It's the kind of lens where you will most likely be shooting at f/8 or tighter anyway. F/2.8 or similar might not be worth the $$.
Hope it helps.
Mark
Another thing to consider, if you decide to go digital, there is a multiplication factor to most digital SLR's. With a factor of 1.5 your 24mm becomes a 36.
With a standard 35mm, I think that wide depends on what you want to do with it. I would want to have something at least 17mm or so. The lens you mention seems like a pretty fast lens--I would want to handle it before buying it. Some of my very fast lenses are very heavy and tend to get left behind.
With a standard 35mm, I think that wide depends on what you want to do with it. I would want to have something at least 17mm or so. The lens you mention seems like a pretty fast lens--I would want to handle it before buying it. Some of my very fast lenses are very heavy and tend to get left behind.
Robthebrit
Explorer
I have the tokina 12-24mm which is awesome even when used on DSLR, it has a little barrel distortion when wide open. I paid around $700 a year ago. Its a pretty sturdy lens and comes with a protective case, full caps etc. It did awesome in death valley in July in the back of my mog without AC, it did better than me and did not have any problem with the heat or the dust.
I also have the prime 15mm canon fish eye which has a full frame 180 degree field of view and awesome for special effcects but everything has severe barrel distortion. Canon have a prime 14mm lens which also has 180 degree field of view but the spherical distortion is almost completely corrected, the downside is that it is $1000 more than the 15mm fish eye ($500 vs $1500).
I have a friend that owns the prime 14mm lens and it is a better lens which is to be expected from a prime lens, it has slightly wider aperture less distortion than the wide open tokina but I had to look very closely to spot the problems.
Overall I would give it 8/10. So you see some pictures here: http://unimogs.robanddenise.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=1008, I think most of those are taken wide open on a DSLR so are effectively 19.2mm.
Rob
I also have the prime 15mm canon fish eye which has a full frame 180 degree field of view and awesome for special effcects but everything has severe barrel distortion. Canon have a prime 14mm lens which also has 180 degree field of view but the spherical distortion is almost completely corrected, the downside is that it is $1000 more than the 15mm fish eye ($500 vs $1500).
I have a friend that owns the prime 14mm lens and it is a better lens which is to be expected from a prime lens, it has slightly wider aperture less distortion than the wide open tokina but I had to look very closely to spot the problems.
Overall I would give it 8/10. So you see some pictures here: http://unimogs.robanddenise.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=1008, I think most of those are taken wide open on a DSLR so are effectively 19.2mm.
Rob
Robthebrit
Explorer
pskhaat
A prime lense is a none zoom lens, ie, a fixed lens. For example a 14mm lens is a prime lens while a 12-24mm lens is not.
Typically they are higher quality and have wider aperatures than zoom lenses that cover the same range. They are also usually more reliable due to far fewer moving parts.
Rob
A prime lense is a none zoom lens, ie, a fixed lens. For example a 14mm lens is a prime lens while a 12-24mm lens is not.
Typically they are higher quality and have wider aperatures than zoom lenses that cover the same range. They are also usually more reliable due to far fewer moving parts.
Rob
bigreen505
Expedition Leader
Scott, are you shooting film or digital? On digital, the 24 is not all that wide (24*1.5= 36 mm POV). Also what do you want from the lens? The 24/2.8 is smaller, lighter and perhaps a bit sharper after f5.6 than the f2.0 version, but you obviously lose f2.0.
On most things of Nikon and nature I hand it off to Bjorn Rorslett who is one of the few people who have actually tested most of the Nikon lenses made. His thoughts can be found on his lens review site.
In general, all the Nikon wide prime (fixed focal length) lenses are good, or at least good enough, though the 15/3.5 and 14/2.8 are not the best. If you are looking for a zoom the 17-35 is an excpetional lens, though heavy and subject to substantial sample variation.
If you shoot digital the only thing really wide is the 12-24 AFS, which IMO is borderline unacceptable on the wide end, but decent on the long end. Huge amounts of flare and chromatic abberation make post processing a daunting process. I thought it was a bad lens at first, but NPS rebuilt the lens and assured us everything was to spec and it was only mildly better. For what its worth the lens is only truly bad on the D2x, none of the other Nikons have enough resolution to make the lens choke.
Bill
On most things of Nikon and nature I hand it off to Bjorn Rorslett who is one of the few people who have actually tested most of the Nikon lenses made. His thoughts can be found on his lens review site.
In general, all the Nikon wide prime (fixed focal length) lenses are good, or at least good enough, though the 15/3.5 and 14/2.8 are not the best. If you are looking for a zoom the 17-35 is an excpetional lens, though heavy and subject to substantial sample variation.
If you shoot digital the only thing really wide is the 12-24 AFS, which IMO is borderline unacceptable on the wide end, but decent on the long end. Huge amounts of flare and chromatic abberation make post processing a daunting process. I thought it was a bad lens at first, but NPS rebuilt the lens and assured us everything was to spec and it was only mildly better. For what its worth the lens is only truly bad on the D2x, none of the other Nikons have enough resolution to make the lens choke.
Bill
cruiser guy
Explorer
I've just gone through the transition from 35mm to digital. In 35mm I found that for scenery a 24mm is probably as wide as you need otherwise everything is too small. On trips to Europe or in situations where you cannot back up then the 20mm came in handy. My favorite lens was my Nikkor 35mm 1.4. It is FAST and a little wider than the "normal lens" without having too much wide angle issues. The problem with the real wide angle lenses is that objects tend to "fall over" if you're not really careful. You start really seeing it with the 28mm if you're not careful and you really need to watch out when you get wider than that.
I've sold all my prime lenses and have gone over to autofocus lenses for the Nikon digital format. I've got a 12-24mm AF-S, 24-120mm VR and an 80-400mm VR. These three lenses plus one digital body replace the following Nikkor lenses that I used for film, 20mm 2.8, 24mm, 2.8, 28mm 2.0, 35mm 1.4, 43-86mm Zoom, 80-200 4.5 zoom, 300mm 4.5 IF-ED and a 500mm mirror lens and several bodies for high speed film, Kodachrome 25, B&W etc. etc.
Film is without a doubt, finer grain and sharper but processing is becoming more difficult for slide films, especially Kodachrome.
I've sold all my prime lenses and have gone over to autofocus lenses for the Nikon digital format. I've got a 12-24mm AF-S, 24-120mm VR and an 80-400mm VR. These three lenses plus one digital body replace the following Nikkor lenses that I used for film, 20mm 2.8, 24mm, 2.8, 28mm 2.0, 35mm 1.4, 43-86mm Zoom, 80-200 4.5 zoom, 300mm 4.5 IF-ED and a 500mm mirror lens and several bodies for high speed film, Kodachrome 25, B&W etc. etc.
Film is without a doubt, finer grain and sharper but processing is becoming more difficult for slide films, especially Kodachrome.
Pskhaat
2005 Expedition Trophy Champion
I am a total neophyte in photography and plan to maintain that status for years to come as it's going. However, I know my digital processing, and my estimates are that until we see upwards of 20-25 megapixel, we won't get to good 35mm film quality. Somewhere I've been told 30+ megapixel for good slide film. Medium-format digitial quality is probably a good 7-10 years out?
Robthebrit
Explorer
It will be a few years until 35mm is firmly in 2nd place for an affordable camera. High quality slide film has about 3000 "pixels" per inch and an EOS 1Ds has it slightly beat at 16.8 MPixels or 4992 x 3328 on a full size CCD. This is at the cutting edge and it will be a while until these resolutions and full size CCDs are common.
I personally do not think they camera manufacturers will go after medium and large format cameras with digital. The cost to develop CCDs that size would be astronomical and the market is tiny.
Rob
I personally do not think they camera manufacturers will go after medium and large format cameras with digital. The cost to develop CCDs that size would be astronomical and the market is tiny.
Rob
bigreen505
Expedition Leader
I'm not here to start a fight, but film as loing since been surpassed. DSLR's can readily beat 35mm film and I would readily match a top end digital back of your choice (P45, Aptus 75, H39, Sinar, Jenoptic) with current Schneider or Rodenstock lenses against drum scanned 4x5 film.
Film has a look all its own and I love it for that (Velvia, Tri-X, TMZ, E100GX all have a place in my camera bag), but if you want to compare prints equal for equal against digital be my guest, but do so with an open mind and you might just be surprised.
Film has a look all its own and I love it for that (Velvia, Tri-X, TMZ, E100GX all have a place in my camera bag), but if you want to compare prints equal for equal against digital be my guest, but do so with an open mind and you might just be surprised.
articulate
Expedition Leader
I love this guy.bigreen505 said:
:bowdown:
Pskhaat
2005 Expedition Trophy Champion
A lot of that was very Greek to me, but we work with some pretty amazing digital images at work sometimes that come from specialized cameras of which I don't know their designations. There's a lot of pixel interpolation that we must do to match the 35mm equivalents; that's pretty much the full swing of my exposure to high end digital comparisons (though they are often of geospatial pictures, not of people and close objects).
cruiser guy
Explorer
I'll agree with DaveInDenver, that film based photography is still the "real thing" but for me in countries like Guatemala digital just made sense. Processing for slide film is difficult to non-existent and the heat could easily kill the film before processing can occur. I had Kodachrome that had to wait almost 2 years to develop because we are in Central America most of the time so mail is unreliable and Kodachrome processing is not available in very many places (only in Kansas for North America AFAIK).
With digital I can download to the laptop and charge up everything on the inverter as we are driving.
Besides if easier to pack around three lenses and one body than 8 lenses and three or four bodies! It also attracts less attention.
p.s. You mean they have transmissions that change gears for you automatically?? :Wow1:
With digital I can download to the laptop and charge up everything on the inverter as we are driving.
Besides if easier to pack around three lenses and one body than 8 lenses and three or four bodies! It also attracts less attention.
p.s. You mean they have transmissions that change gears for you automatically?? :Wow1:
bigreen505
Expedition Leader
Yes cruiserguy, there are actually transmissons that can precisely calculate the proper gear and never select it, probably mostly for spite.
Like I said, film vs. digital is a debate I'm not going to get into, but I'll just say there is a reason I have a camera that I can shoot with film or with digital on the same body.
Scott, I understand where you are coming from now. Careful with confusing resolution and file size with actual information. I can scan a piece of 35 mm film at 10,000 ppi and generate at 300 MB file. However, there is not that much information on a piece of film. Never the less, if you open that file in Photoshop, it will tell you that you can make a pretty ginormus print from it. In reality there is only about 4000 ppi worth of information there, if that, and beyond that point all you are doing is scanning film grain. In digital, you are only dealing with actual information, so the files are smaller, but much higher quality for a given size.
I have a bulletin board in my office filled with photos of all sizes that currently inspire me. The largest is printed as a 16x24. I will give anyone $50 who can come over and correctly identify what image was shot by which camera. I will tell you that you have a choice of 6 mp DSLR, 10 mp DSLR, 6x6 reflex and 6x9 rangefinder. Okay, I guess a couple of them are dead give aways if you look closely, but the rest might leave you guessing.
On the debate between MF film and DSLR, I think it depends on what lenses were used, how the film was scanned and how the digital files were handled. Remember that in the world of professional photography, quality is priority #3. Profitability is #1 and turn-around time is #2, so the fact that most of the professional world abandoned film for digital has much less to do with quality than most people think.
To keep this on track for an expedition Web site, I really think film has some distinct advantages over digital for expedition work. Never having to clean your sensor is a huge one, less reliance on battery power for the camera, not having to haul laptops and storage devices with you, possibly more durable, shoot film, ship it to your lab as you have access to courriers (FedEx). If you want digital files, my lab charges $10 per roll to scan to CD with files large enough for a 8x12 print, and they do an excellent job color correcting. Also long exposures (anything beyond about 30 seconds) are the sole domain of film.
The advantage of digital in an expedition context is that, with the proper equipment (laptop, portable storage, power inverters) you are completely self sufficient, can shoot and edit as you go. If you are working with a stock agency, images can be key worded, captioned, metadataed and sent they day of capture or immediately upon return.
But we really have drifted a long way from the original question.
Like I said, film vs. digital is a debate I'm not going to get into, but I'll just say there is a reason I have a camera that I can shoot with film or with digital on the same body.
Scott, I understand where you are coming from now. Careful with confusing resolution and file size with actual information. I can scan a piece of 35 mm film at 10,000 ppi and generate at 300 MB file. However, there is not that much information on a piece of film. Never the less, if you open that file in Photoshop, it will tell you that you can make a pretty ginormus print from it. In reality there is only about 4000 ppi worth of information there, if that, and beyond that point all you are doing is scanning film grain. In digital, you are only dealing with actual information, so the files are smaller, but much higher quality for a given size.
I have a bulletin board in my office filled with photos of all sizes that currently inspire me. The largest is printed as a 16x24. I will give anyone $50 who can come over and correctly identify what image was shot by which camera. I will tell you that you have a choice of 6 mp DSLR, 10 mp DSLR, 6x6 reflex and 6x9 rangefinder. Okay, I guess a couple of them are dead give aways if you look closely, but the rest might leave you guessing.
On the debate between MF film and DSLR, I think it depends on what lenses were used, how the film was scanned and how the digital files were handled. Remember that in the world of professional photography, quality is priority #3. Profitability is #1 and turn-around time is #2, so the fact that most of the professional world abandoned film for digital has much less to do with quality than most people think.
To keep this on track for an expedition Web site, I really think film has some distinct advantages over digital for expedition work. Never having to clean your sensor is a huge one, less reliance on battery power for the camera, not having to haul laptops and storage devices with you, possibly more durable, shoot film, ship it to your lab as you have access to courriers (FedEx). If you want digital files, my lab charges $10 per roll to scan to CD with files large enough for a 8x12 print, and they do an excellent job color correcting. Also long exposures (anything beyond about 30 seconds) are the sole domain of film.
The advantage of digital in an expedition context is that, with the proper equipment (laptop, portable storage, power inverters) you are completely self sufficient, can shoot and edit as you go. If you are working with a stock agency, images can be key worded, captioned, metadataed and sent they day of capture or immediately upon return.
But we really have drifted a long way from the original question.