Wide/Superwide fast lens for Canon recommendation?
JC
Registered Users Posts: 768 Major grins
Yes, it's another 'what lens should I get' or rather, what lens should I aspire to get, thread.
I'm currently shooting wide angle with either my 17-40L, or my 28mm 1.8, on a canon FX. For daylight and landscapes my 17-40 is great, I've had it for over 5 years, and it was the first non-kit lens I bought for a digital camera. Actually, it was the first good lens I ever bought. But for my night time shooting, the 28 isn't wide enough, and the 17-40 isn't as fast as I'd like.
I've been looking at wide/super wide lenses, and it really seems like the 16-35L is what I would want. What I'd be looking for is: wide/superwide focal length, low vignette, low chromatic aberration, fast, and relatively sharp corners(but this is less important than vignette). How does the 16-35L I compare to the II? For my purposes, mostly startrails and other non-telescope based astrophotography, is the MarkI a good deal, or is the MarkII such a great improvement that I should wait until I could afford that?
How about 3rd party lenses? I was reading about Tamron and sigma, and it seems like they all have drawbacks and I'd be just as well sticking with my 17-40 and a higher ISO.
I don't need autofocus, an old manual focus prime would be fine, as long as it doesn't give me a lens error, but focus confirmation would be great. I aven't come across desciptions of good potential primes though. The Canon 24mm L sounds great, and I'd love to have it, but it seems like the 16-35 would give me similar image quality, only a little slower, and more flexibility. IWith a prime I'd rather go too wide and crop.
Here are some examples, and what I'd like to improve on:
1) this pretty much shows off the 17-40 in a great light, a little less vignette would be nice, but it's not bad at all. I'd just like to go a bit faster.
2) Here's where I'd like to go faster. yeah, I know it's tilted, a hot shoe bubble level is the next on my list to buy, should be more affordable than a new lens....I had to put the camera low to the ground in an awkard low spot to get this, and couldn't chimp very well.
3) 100% crop of last weeks startrails. Shooting towards city lights (even if they are >100km away), I lowered the exposure time to 15 seconds from my usual 1 or 2 minute exposures. But, now the chromatic abberation in individual shots is showing up in the trails- the blebby color effect. It's amplified because there was a small amount of cloudiness/hazyness in the air that was making the stars 'twinkle' more.
I'm currently shooting wide angle with either my 17-40L, or my 28mm 1.8, on a canon FX. For daylight and landscapes my 17-40 is great, I've had it for over 5 years, and it was the first non-kit lens I bought for a digital camera. Actually, it was the first good lens I ever bought. But for my night time shooting, the 28 isn't wide enough, and the 17-40 isn't as fast as I'd like.
I've been looking at wide/super wide lenses, and it really seems like the 16-35L is what I would want. What I'd be looking for is: wide/superwide focal length, low vignette, low chromatic aberration, fast, and relatively sharp corners(but this is less important than vignette). How does the 16-35L I compare to the II? For my purposes, mostly startrails and other non-telescope based astrophotography, is the MarkI a good deal, or is the MarkII such a great improvement that I should wait until I could afford that?
How about 3rd party lenses? I was reading about Tamron and sigma, and it seems like they all have drawbacks and I'd be just as well sticking with my 17-40 and a higher ISO.
I don't need autofocus, an old manual focus prime would be fine, as long as it doesn't give me a lens error, but focus confirmation would be great. I aven't come across desciptions of good potential primes though. The Canon 24mm L sounds great, and I'd love to have it, but it seems like the 16-35 would give me similar image quality, only a little slower, and more flexibility. IWith a prime I'd rather go too wide and crop.
Here are some examples, and what I'd like to improve on:
1) this pretty much shows off the 17-40 in a great light, a little less vignette would be nice, but it's not bad at all. I'd just like to go a bit faster.
2) Here's where I'd like to go faster. yeah, I know it's tilted, a hot shoe bubble level is the next on my list to buy, should be more affordable than a new lens....I had to put the camera low to the ground in an awkard low spot to get this, and couldn't chimp very well.
3) 100% crop of last weeks startrails. Shooting towards city lights (even if they are >100km away), I lowered the exposure time to 15 seconds from my usual 1 or 2 minute exposures. But, now the chromatic abberation in individual shots is showing up in the trails- the blebby color effect. It's amplified because there was a small amount of cloudiness/hazyness in the air that was making the stars 'twinkle' more.
Yeah, if you recognize the avatar, new user name.
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ackdoc.com
Bottom line, for the price I just can't bring myself to recommend it for landscape photography. The Nikon 14-24 beats it by such an incredible margin, I'd rather use that even if I were a Canon shooter. Canon's forte is just NOT ultra-wides.
If you're on any sort of budget, I highly recommend the Tokina 11-16 2.8. It's a GREAT adventure photography lens, because it suits both full-frame and crop sensors very well. On a 7D it's one of the most perfect lightweight, starscape / adventure kits available. On a full-frame Canon, it works great at 16mm and has comparable or better corners than even the 16-35 mk2. For $700 instead of $1700, you just can't go wrong. Unlike Sigma and Tamron lenses, Tokina lenses are built like a tank.
If aperture speed is most important to you, consider the Sigma 20 f/1.8, but just know that it's really best for star time lapses where you aren't trying to resolve 21 megapixels in the extreme corners. It does a good job wide open for a 1080p time lapse video.
Or, you can always go oldschool and get a manual focus 24mm f/2 lens, I know Nikon has a stellar, sharp-as-heck version and I'm sure Canon's FD (?) mount has one too. That's probably the best compromise for aperture, sharpness, durability, and affordability...
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Some issues to ponder if considering this route, however.
FD / Eos converters come in 2 main flavours - with / without optics.
Those without optics will be fine if you don't want to keep infinity focus (so no good here)
Those with optics can be either the original Canon one - rare, expensive and not suitable for all FD lenses ... or 3rd party offerings which generally have questionable IQ.
pp
Flickr
True. I suggest using older Nikon and Pentax manual focus lenses, if you want to save money and if manual focus will suffice.
My preference is old Pentax screw-mount/M42 prime lenses, mounted via an M42/EOS adapter with a focus confirmation chip. Sadly you won't find extremely wide lenses for a crop camera this way because these older lenses were designed for FF/film cameras.
Another approach is to use a stitched panorama. You can find very nice macro lenses, new and used, take a series of images which easily stitch together later (true macro lenses typically have little distortion so they stitch nicely) to yield as broad a view as you can wish for, with incredible detail. The nice thing about stitched sky images is that you don't have to worry about parallax error and the stars themselves. No parallax with objects at infinity, so a standard tripod head will do (unless you have foreground objects in the scene.)
If you have foreground objects in the scene, just use a panoramic head.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
...Which is why I love my D700 and the direct AIS lens compatibility. IMO, anyone who is hardcore into star trails or time lapse photography ought to buy themselves a used D700 and a couple AIS primes, even if their main system is something else. MF lens compatibility and built-in intervalometer, FTW!
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Thanks all, the Nikon looks great, but I'd have to wait a while to build up the budget for that one, the Tokina also looks good, I'd forgotten about the option of using zoom lenses designed for crop sensors on a full frame body if you keep to the longer focal lengths, plus, the Tokina would be great on my Xti when backpacking. For both of those, though, I'd be really worried about the lack of a filter option, since star trails are one of the key uses I'd put the lens to. The thing is, I usually just set the timer for my 5d, and go to sleep while my camera does all the work. I have a semi waterproof wool cover I put over the camera and lens if I think things look iffy, but I like to be able to use a filter on the front if I'm not 100% sure of the weather conditions.
I looked at the FD primes, none really jumped out at me, the Pentax primes I found looked ok, is Ziggy saying that i can also convert Nikon primes to Canon? My Xti sucks at astro, so I'm always shooting those with my 5D. One more concern I have is with dust, which is why primes would be attractive, manual focus is definitely not a problem. My 70-300 DO turns out to be a hoover, just sucking dust up and at some point will also be on the list to upgrade, but i like the size and weight for backpacking.
Now if I could just find someone to buy my White Fang startrails shot (first one above) for a couple thousand bucks....I wouldn't have to think so hard
Right. A simple mechanical adapter may be used with older manual focus Nikon "F" mount lenses. Even Nikon "F" mount, "G" series lenses (without an aperture ring) may be used with a more complicated, and more expensive adapter.
Just Google for "Nikon EOS adapter".
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
http://www.markhumpage.com/
pp
(btw, Matt - in the same way many would suggest using a Canon body + Mpe 65 for 'hard core' macro
Flickr
The Tokina 11-16 accepts 77mm filters, it is the Tokina 16-28 that does not. In fact the Tokina 11-16 is the ONLY lens on the market that can take a Canon user to 16mm full-frame and still accept front filters, aside from the 16-35's.
Happy shooting! If you also have a rebel crop sensor that you use for "go-light" adventures, I can't recommend any lens higher than the Tokina 11-16...
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Found a Tokina for sale on CL. Talk about a used lens holding it's price....Ironically, the guy was selling it because he bought a full frame and upgraded to the Canon 16-35.
Sample shots. Weather has been too unsteady at night to try any star trails yet. On satellite internet, so these are pretty far down-sampled and compressed.
Had to hold the camera at arms length over my head with my fingertips to get close enough to this owl, so didn't get quite the angle I wanted.
Nice! Does it look like you got a copy with sharp corners? Looks great from what I can tell on the low-res samples. I'll look forward to seeing some star trail tests... :-)
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Hi the 24 L II is very nice, but it has some coma wide open especially in the corners.
I din't believe this at first until I took a 2nd look. On a crop camera where the corners are
invisible however it might be not too bad.
Some excellent but inexpensive lenses are Samyang 14mm f/2.8 MC and Samyang 35mm f/1.4 MC
and probably the new Samyang 24mm f/1.4 MC. All are manual focus. Not sure if they have coma issues though.
― Edward Weston