Wide Angle Advice

houseofdixon

I recently found a screw on lens i had for an old video camera that gave a bit of a wide angle look to the video. I realized it also screwed into my nikon lenses and so i grabbed a few shots with it. Now i really want to get a legit Wide-Angle, but want to make sure i get a good one and do it cheap. Any Thoughts?

ziggy53

houseofdixon wrote:

... want to make sure i get a good one and do it cheap. Any Thoughts?

Good lenses, wide angle or otherwise, are not cheap lenses.

What do you want to use the lens for?

Do you need a prime lens or a zoom lens?

Indoor and low light?

What camera?

Are you willing to purchase used?

houseofdixon

Thanks for the reply! I'll answer those questions in order

• What do you want to use the lens for?
  • personal use, 6 month old daughter!
• Do you need a prime lens or a zoom lens?
  • I'm thinking prime, I already have some regular zoom lenses, this is more for those fun shots
• Indoor and low light?
  • combination indoor/outdoor, but probably mostly under fairly higher light conditions
• What camera?
  • Right now I've got a Nikon D50, and will probably stick with Nikon due to Lenses.
• Are you willing to purchase used?
  • Yes

ziggy53

My first recommendation would be for a super-wide zoom lens. These have a lot of flexibility and, on a crop 1.5x (Nikon DX) sensor can even approach standard focal lengths, which are more pleasing usually for people images.

In this regard, I could suggest:

Nikkor AF-S DX 10-24mm, f3.5-f4.5G ED
Sigma 10-20mm, f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM
Sigma 10-20mm, f/3.5 EX DC HSM
Tokina 12-24mm, f/4 PRO DX
Tokina AT-X 11-16mm, f2.8 PRO DX
Tamron SP 11-18mm, f4.5-f5.6 Di-II LD Aspherical [IF]
Tamron SP 10-24mm, f3.5-f4.5 Di-II LD Aspherical [IF]

While none of these are "cheap", some are very reasonable. The Sigma lenses include their HSM motor technology and the Sigma 10-20mm, f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM is indeed fairly quick to focus, something you may appreciate when your daughter starts moving more quickly.

For a prime lens, anything less than 35mm would be a wide angle lens for your D50, but I'm assuming you already have a competent "standard" zoom with an 18mm focal length or so. Unless you go with a fisheye lens there is very little to offer that is wider, so i suggest that the super-wide zooms are the way to go.

Qarik

from my research the tokina 11-16mm is optically the best WA for the nikon short of the legendary 14-24mm.

Village Idiot

I got a lot of use out of a friend's variable aperture Sigma 10-20. It's a very nice lens for the money and I never had any problems with it.