# wide angle lens



## chrysek (Aug 18, 2011)

Hello folks. I've been with canon brand for past quite a few years. I currently have Canon 5D Mark II, menawhile I got some lenses and I am quite happy with them but I am looking for realy good wide angle lens.
For me the most importnat thing with lens is the F stuff, so the lower it gets the better for me, so for me lenses that are 2.8 or lower are the ones that I love the most. Anyway which wide angle lens would you recommend? Which one is the best? Which one can capture the most of the area without getting any significant distortions (fisheye type)?


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## hippoeater (Aug 18, 2011)

I would take a look at the Canon 14mm F2.8 Mark II

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-14mm-f-2.8-L-II-USM-Lens-Review.aspx


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## DJL329 (Aug 18, 2011)

It depends on how wide you want to go and how much you're willing to spend. 

The Canon EF 28mm f/1.8, which I own (I also use the 5D Mark II), is a great prime lens and not too expensive (~$500 new). It's small, light and fast. It's my lens of choice for shooting landscapes, sunsets, etc.

The EF 16-35mm f/2.8L is a well loved *ultra*-wide zoom, but it is large and costs more (~$1700 new).

The EF 14mm f/2.8L II is even wider (I have the original version), but costs more still (~ $2200 with current Canon promotion). This lens is best for getting up close to something to distort the perspective. It has a convex lens, so you can't put a filter on the end of it, so watch the fingerprints and be careful not to walk into things with it!

For a deal, check out Canon's website, where you can buy refurbished ones (w/90 day warranty) or the buy&sell forum on fredmiranda.com, where pros and amateurs alike can buy/sell used photography hardware.


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## Rocky (Aug 18, 2011)

Look into the test result of the dslrgear.com. The 17-40mm f4 L seems to be a good compromise in perfromance/cost/size. I am using it for APS-C sensor. I love it. Keep in mind that FF is a lot more demanding on the lens. Also you can see the test result on the 16-35mm and other Canon lenses on the same site.


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## iaind (Aug 18, 2011)

I also have a 28mm 1.8 in the bag for low light but normally use an old but trusted 17-35 2.8L.


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 18, 2011)

chrysek said:


> Hello folks. I've been with canon brand for past quite a few years. I currently have Canon 5D Mark II, menawhile I got some lenses and I am quite happy with them but I am looking for realy good wide angle lens.
> For me the most importnat thing with lens is the F stuff, so the lower it gets the better for me, so for me lenses that are 2.8 or lower are the ones that I love the most. Anyway which wide angle lens would you recommend? Which one is the best? Which one can capture the most of the area without getting any significant distortions (fisheye type)?



How wide do you need/want to go? What's your budget? If you truly mean just wide angle, on FF that's 24mm - anything shorter is called ultrawide. What's the widest lens you have now? Without more info, a good recommendation is impossible. I could say 14mm f/2.8L II, but if $2200 is not affordable for you, that's a useless recommendation. I'm not sure why people are recommending the 17-40mm f/4 when you want f/2.8 or faster. If you want faster than f/2.8, with Canon the widest you can get is 24mm (the 24mm f/1.4L II). The only current wider and faster lens for FF is the Sigma 20mm f/1.8 - a bargain, but you need a tolerance for images on the soft side.


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## NormanBates (Aug 19, 2011)

no idea about your budget or how wide you want to go, but...

for myself, I'm considering:

* samyang 8mm f/3.5
* samyang 14mm f/2.8
* samyang 24mm f/1.4
* tokina 11-16 f/2.8 (works on full-frame at the 16mm end)
* canon 24mm f/2.8


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## TAR (Aug 19, 2011)

Buy samyang 14mm UMC. the best uwa lens on the market for the money. corner to corner very sharp. canon 14mm II is complete waste of money compared to samyang


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## Heidrun (Aug 19, 2011)

TAR said:


> Buy samyang 14mm UMC. the best uwa lens on the market for the money. corner to corner very sharp. canon 14mm II is complete waste of money compared to samyang



No autofocus and the aperture has to be used manually. That makes a very dark viewfinder and not good if you want to use a small aperture


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 19, 2011)

TAR said:


> Buy samyang 14mm UMC. the best uwa lens on the market for the money. corner to corner very sharp. canon 14mm II is complete waste of money compared to samyang



The OP wanted the least amount of distortion possible, but my understanding is that the Samyang 14mm is quite distorted (one of its few flaws). Worth noting the Samyang is manual focus, usually not an issue for an UWA lens.


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## TAR (Aug 19, 2011)

Who in is this world use the image right out of the camera? it is easily correctable with PT lens which cost 25$ ..better IQ than 2200$ canon 14mm..just for the AF and distortion? see the comparison between samyang and canon and decide yourself. 






neuroanatomist said:


> TAR said:
> 
> 
> > Buy samyang 14mm UMC. the best uwa lens on the market for the money. corner to corner very sharp. canon 14mm II is complete waste of money compared to samyang
> ...


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## NormanBates (Aug 19, 2011)

yes, the samyang 14mm f/2.8 has a lot more distortion than the canon 14mm f/2.8L, and it is some ugly distortion too
http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/541-canon14f28mk2ff?start=1
http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/532-samyang14f28eosff?start=1
but if price is an issue, that canon is a non-contender (plus: the samyang is waaaaay sharper)

in any case, that distortion is the reason I'm also considering the tokina 11-16: it works as a 16mm on full-frame, and at that focal length it is nearly distortion-free on APS-C:
http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/533-samyang14f28eosapsc?start=1
http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/666-tokina1116f28eos?start=1
no idea what will happen in the corners of the FF sensor (I've seen some pictures taken with it, but none of charts); and it is also more expensive than the samyang

plus:
* the tokina 11-16 works on a FF body, but you have to be careful because maybe it could hit/scratch the mirror
* some 11-16 love here:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=857295&page=3

and I forgot: tokina also makes a 16-28 F/2.8 that is quite good too:
http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/595-tokina162828eosff?start=1
but it's more expensive, and shows some distortion on the wide end too


edit: oh, and BTW: I shoot video, so PT lens or similar software is not an option for me, but I LOVE the manual focus and iris rings on the samyang (actually I'd get the nikon version and a cheap adapter: you never know what the future holds)


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 19, 2011)

TAR said:


> Who in is this world use the image right out of the camera? it is easily correctable with PT lens which cost 25$ ..better IQ than 2200$ canon 14mm..just for the AF and distortion? see the comparison between samyang and canon and decide yourself.



To quote the photozone.de review that NormanBates linked, "_It produces a whopping 5.3% barrel distortion with a mustache-style sub-frequency. For serious architecture photography this is pretty much a no-go unless you correct the problem during post-processing (which is not easy due to the rather complex distortion characteristic). However, to be fair this is mostly a non-issue for landscape photography and that's surely a primary application for such a lens._"

Not knowing the uses the OP plans or the budget available, the recommendation of the 14mm f/2.8L is a good one. 

As stated above, if price is a limiting factor - and it usually is - then options become more limited.


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## Edwin Herdman (Aug 21, 2011)

@ Neuro, TAR:

The OP said "without getting any significant distortions" (fisheye type)" which causes me to believe he's looking for the widest rectilinear lens available, not necessarily one with the least distortions (barrel, pincushion, or complex).

It's interesting to compare the "reviews" of the Samyang: Ken Rockwell basically called it garbage, but Photozone found really amazing resolution figures, offset by 5% barrel distortion (ouch!) - perhaps this could be fixed in a future version. For the moment, however, a 14mm lens at $400 is pretty much unheard of. However good those resolution figures are, though, I figure you lose a portion of that "debarreling" (fixing) the distortion in your post processing. Yes, it is a complicated distortion but simply treating it as simple barrel distortion should get you most of the way there without too much quality loss. For the price and native image quality it doesn't seem beatable.


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## contrastny (Sep 2, 2011)

How about the Zeiss Distagon 18mm f/3.5?


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## J. McCabe (Sep 3, 2011)

The Sigma 14mm has a barrel distortion, so fixing it would introduce a crop, unsure how big.



TAR said:


> Who in is this world use the image right out of the camera? it is easily correctable with PT lens which cost 25$ ..better IQ than 2200$ canon 14mm..just for the AF and distortion? see the comparison between samyang and canon and decide yourself.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## AJ (Sep 6, 2011)

_Which one can capture the most of the area without getting any significant distortions (fisheye type)?
_

Try Sigma 12-24 mk2. It's not particularly fast, though. But 12 mm is crazy wide.

If you want speed there's Canon 24/1.4

Which one is the best? There's no answer to that. Canon 16-35/2.8 is a good compromise between wideness, speed, focal length range, and image quality.


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## koolman (Sep 7, 2011)

chrysek said:


> Hello folks. I've been with canon brand for past quite a few years. I currently have Canon 5D Mark II, menawhile I got some lenses and I am quite happy with them but I am looking for realy good wide angle lens.
> For me the most importnat thing with lens is the F stuff, so the lower it gets the better for me, so for me lenses that are 2.8 or lower are the ones that I love the most. Anyway which wide angle lens would you recommend? Which one is the best? Which one can capture the most of the area without getting any significant distortions (fisheye type)?



If money is not an issue 16-35L mark2 - superb option


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 7, 2011)

passserby said:


> It's funny how some people show up, ask one questions, and then are gone, leaving everyone behind with the task of figuring out what they meant
> 
> As for Samyang 14mm, there are two different lenses:
> 
> ...



There is only one version that was sold. After the poor review of the first lens, Samyang pulled back the samples and redesigned it.

I bought the second version, believing the hype. It was garbage, so I can only imagine how bad the first version would have been if it had been sold.

"After our test the producer decided to withdraw first specimens of that lens from the market and started to redesign it. It was announced that they intended to improve the work against bright light and to increase the quality of images at the frame edge (the resolution was supposed to increase by 15% there). "


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## YoukY63 (Sep 8, 2011)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> There is only one version that was sold. After the poor review of the first lens, Samyang pulled back the samples and redesigned it.
> 
> *I bought the second version, believing the hype. It was garbage*, so I can only imagine how bad the first version would have been if it had been sold.
> 
> "After our test the producer decided to withdraw first specimens of that lens from the market and started to redesign it. It was announced that they intended to improve the work against bright light and to increase the quality of images at the frame edge (the resolution was supposed to increase by 15% there). "


It was that bad? You were probably not lucky ad get a bad copy, because mine is razor sharp! Actually it is probably my sharper lens, more than my 70-200F4L IS or 35mm F1.4L ! And there is almost no AC! Optically, it is incredible, excepted the distortions but they are only disturbing when you have very straight lines in the picture (mostly buildings).

PS: did you try to focus in liveview? Because the focus ring is not reliable. I have perfect focus by setting it between 2.5m-3m (excepted for proxy, I never change it). Setting it further would "over"-focus and therefore be completely out of focus.


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## TexPhoto (Sep 8, 2011)

If your goal was just to go wide I'd say Sigma 12-24mm II all day long.


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