14mm f/2.8 wide open = sharp ???

It's interesting to me how attitudes have changed. Back when I started in photography with

35mm, a 28mm focal length was super wide angle and anything shorter than a 20mm was

a fish eye lens.

 

Nowadays, people seem to treat a 90 degree across the diagonal field of view as "nothing

special"...

 

Personally, I had a Voigtländer 15mm Asph for the Leica M some years ago and didn't like

such an extreme field of view. I sold it and bought a 21mm, had a 20mm for my Nikons,

and to this day don't have much use for a field of view beyond 90 degrees on the diagonal.

 

I guess I'm becoming a curmudgeon now. ;-) :-)

 

Godfrey

My experience is the same. The widest lens on my OM-3 is a 21mm, but for the first 25 years, I didn't have anything wider than the 28 (wow, I must be getting old...).

 

Except for some very few shots (very cramped interiors etc.), to me, wider angles than that become more of a special effect, and for special effects, I can as well use a fish-eye.

Man, some people shoot their mouths off ...

 

It's amazing to see the mis-information that is injected into discussions by those who don't know what they're talking about. Those with no direct knowlewdge of the lens in question ought to hold off until those who do have a chance to speak up. Two people in the discussion above have direct experience of this lens and they have to counter the crap put up by others.

 

I have no direct experience of the Pentax DA 14mm lens, but I did see this review. The reviewers thought it excellent.

 

http://www.popphoto.com/cameralenses/1906/lens-test-pentax-smcp-da-14mm-f28-af.html

 

Regards, Rod

Actually Godfrey,

 

"no lens performs it's best wide open" is not true at all.

 

For instance the Canon 200mm 2.0 is sharpest at 2.0. Leica has made lenses that are sharpest wide open.

 

Lenses can be made to be tack sharp wide open but it's expensive and they rarely are.

 

I still believe if I had $600 to drop right now this second on the 12-24 which is amazing, or a ok 14mm 2.8 I'd opt for the 12-24.

 

I have the sigma 20 1.8 EX DG which is useless at 1.8 and I'd gladly trade it for a better yet slower Pentax 21mm DA 3.2 in an instant. No point in carrying around 1.8 or 2.8 wide angle glass if you cant use it at the max aperture.

 

And I disagree that you'd NEVER use a 14mm at 2.8. Since the DOF is huge in these lenses you certainly could use it wide open if the situation was needed. Not everyone shooting a wide angle uses it for tripod mounted landscapes. Perhaps it's being used for climbing photography in confined spaces. Or indoors in low light. Maybe under the hoop or behind the glass at a basketball game.

Lenses that perform best wide open seems to be a nice German tradition. Several of the Zeiss lenses fall within the same category, and reading about them on their web-site can be quite an eye-opener.

 

It must be said though, that many fast WA-lenses are not very sharp wide open, which is understandable.

Justin,

 

Have you actually used EITHER of these lenses? I've compared them directly and own one

of them. It sounds to me like you are just making judgements based on second hand tales

told by others. I work with the DA14 a lot.

 

I did misspeak: there are some lenses that are corrected for optimum performance wide

open. I don't know that 200mm lens, but I do know the Minox Complan 15mm f/3.5 ...

which is optimized for that lens opening and cannot be stopped down. The vast majority

of lenses, however ... and all ultrawides that I know of ... perform better at corners and

edges when stopped down. (The Minox 15mm is a normal lens for the 8x11mm format.)

 

Godfrey

I don't own either but am buying one (the 12-24) in the next 6 months. I've extensively researched both and a friend of mine has the Tokina version in Nikon mount which I've seen and like based on his experience, photos and just the quality of the lens. And based on my criteria (flare control being at the top, usable wideopen being also high) the 14 isn't on par with the 12-24 yet they are almost priced equivalent.

 

I actually prefer primes so I was headed in the direction of the 14mm. Just too many examples of poor flare control, softness, etc swayed me.

 

And my reply was directed towards the initial question of sharp wide open which no one will deny it's not.

Justin,

 

How you can research and come to conclusions about two lenses without actually using

them is beyond me.

 

The DA12-24 is a fine lens, without a doubt. It does not perform better at 14mm FL than

the DA14, with regard to use wide open, sharpness, flare or rectilinear correction. Those

are the results of my personally testing the two lenses against one another using the same

test procedure and the same Pentax body. If it had, I might have sold the 14 and bought

the 12-24 instead.

 

You can believe anything you want to believe, but these are the facts. Saying that the DA14

is soft or flares a lot or doesn't work well wide open is incorrect.

 

Either one you buy will be a fine performer.

 

Godfrey

I am tossing this thread back because I have gone through the same arguments this past couple of weeks. After much research and looking at lots of examples I narrowed it down to the DA 12-24mm f4 or the 14mm f2.8 (I dropped the Sigma 10-20mm from the list for a number of reasons). I finally went with the 14mm based on a very good price and the fact that, if the 12-24mm is slightly better it still cannot make up for what was (for me at least) anywhere from a $200-250 price premium.

 

A recent wedding shoot has truly taken me back to my photographic roots. I the beginning my kit was a 35mm Pentax MESuper (and K1000) with a 28mm f2.8, a 50mm f1.7, a 135mm f2.8 and a 70-150mm f3.8 zoom, my kit now consistes of a K10D (and *istDS) with a 35mm f2, a 50mm f1.4 and a 100-300mm f4.5-5.6 zoom, toss the 14mm into that mix and I cover a much greater telephoto range than before but still have a very similar kit. The wedding I spoke of gave me a little more time than usual and I could examine my results more closely, the result was that my zoom lenses were put back in the bag and the vast majority of shots were with the FA35 and FA50, I had to resort to the 18-55mm kit lens for wider shots and I was not overly pleased with the results so bring on the DA14.

 

I think we sometimes get so caught up in arguments over ultimate sharpness that we miss the artistic intent of these images. Perhaps it is time to review some of the works of the photographic legends and see that they were not always the sharpest, they were merely the best.

 

Ira

<center>

<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/ramarren/photo/PAW7/large/44d-half.jpg" target=new1>

<img src="http://homepage.mac.com/ramarren/photo/PAW7/large/44d.jpg" border=0></a><br>

The Surgery #1 - Alcatraz 2007<br>

<i>©2007 Godfrey DiGiorgi<br>

Pentax K10D + DA14mm f/2.8 ED<br>

ISO 400 @ f/11 @ 1/5 sec, Av <br>

<br>

Click the image above for a larger version in a separate window.</i><br>

</center><br>

I hope you enjoy the DA14/2.8 as much as I do.

<br><br>

<i>..."I think we sometimes get so caught up in arguments over ultimate sharpness that we miss the artistic intent of these images. Perhaps it is

time to review some of the works of the photographic legends and see that they were not always the sharpest, they were merely the best."...</i>

<br><br>

There is a heck of a lot of equipment geekery on all these forums. Very little of it has a positive effect on the pursuit of good photography. It's

easy to debate opinions and numbers on a spec sheet. It's hard to create good photographs.

<br><br>

Such it is. ;-)

<br><br>

Godfrey

Yeah, and quite a few of these arguments on sharpness of lenses won't post close-up comparison shots to prove their points. No

one can determine the potential sharpness of a lens viewing small full frame images on the web. There's not one image posted

on this thread that tells me anything about the sharpness of a lens.

I don't normally shoot comparison tests, only occasionally to check a specific lens. And I don't have examples from the 12-24 as I didn't

save them. However, these two links both point to full resolution photos,

if you cared to look at the 14mm's performance:

<br><br>

<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/godders/DA14-WO-5306.jpg">http://homepage.mac.com/godders/DA14-WO-

5306.jpg</a><br>

<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/godders/14mm-examples/">http://homepage.mac.com/godders/14mm-

examples/</a><br>

<br>

Both were listed above.

<br><br>

G

Wonder why this thread no longer appears in the Pentax forum? Took me the longest time to find it by searching Godfrey's name

and locating his recent postings.

 

Godfrey,

 

I was looking for shots of close-up crops of full rez images of distant objects. I couldn't find that in the links you provided or

maybe I just wasn't looking in the right place.

Can find it in Pentax forum by clicking 'New Answers'. Since the thread was started a year and a half ago, it's nowhere near the latest couple hundred of threads which is apparently all you can see without searching or using a link from yours or somebody else's 'workspace'.

 

Godfrey's examples are full-res, 6MP from *ist DS (at least the first few I looked at). Depending on your browser, it may require an extra click to zoom.

<i>"close up crops of full rez images of distant objects" </i>

<br><br>

Huh? What the heck does that mean? <br>

The images in the examples I provided above give full resolution, full range of distances, all apertures. What else could you

possibly want?

<br><br>

G

Then I was looking in the wrong place. Thanks for the links, Godfrey.

You're right, Andrew. I needed to use the magnifying glass cursor click to see the larger size. I'm using Safari.

I may be a little late to influence anyone's decision with this post but I wanted to offer my experience with the DA 14, the 12-24, and the

16-45 discussed above. There are many things to like about the DA 14 and its center sharpness at all apertures is excellent. Its edge

sharpness is adequate even wide open for nearly all applications. Several things set the DA 14 apart from the other lenses that are worth

discussing. The DA 14 is capable of extremely close-focusing and reasonable magnification making it an option for wide-angle macro. It

is also has reasonable bokeh for a wide angle lens. Its flare resistance is better than either the 12-24 or the 16-45. When comparing the

DA 14 to these excellent zooms, one must realize that they all will produce good images depending upon the application. The colors and

contrast from the DA 14 are just hard to beat and some of my best images have been taken with this prime lens. I love and use all of

these lenses but my favorite is the 14.

Awesome lens: 14mm f/2.8 DA. I agree with John, this lens has wonderful wide-angle macro option. I could not believe this lens would go as close as approx. 16 cm. That is from the film/sensor plane!