extra wide recommendations for my MF slr? (under 500)

<p>Looking for something that will do something within 15mm to 24mm, can be fixed or zoom. <br /><br />must be under 500, prefer something closer to 2-3.<br>

must work on manual focus slr body (nikon FE)<br>

anyone got any good recommendations? I've been looking at the nikon 20mm 2.8 al-s. seems that might be the best option for price and quality, but wanted to check if anyone has any suggestions i haven't looked into. doesnt have to be made by nikon.<br>

aperture size, physical size, and plastic vs metal casing arent really considerations of mine.</p>

<p>AF-Nikkor 18-35/3.5-4.5</p>

<p>I second the 18-35mm for a film SLR. I got one for my D7000 because I might ALSO want to use it on my F4 or even the FG. I considered the 18-70mm that came with the D70 as a kit lens, but I didn't need the longer reach and I had faster lenses in the 70mm range. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>How have you found the distortion with this lens? that was my only concern when i looked into this one,</p>

<p>How wide do you want to go? The Samyang (and associated brands) 14/2.8 runs about $400.</p>

<p>i dont want to trade image quality for those extra mm. could be wrong but my understanding is that anything much wider than 18mm you have to fork out a fortune to get the image quality you can get out of some of the good 20 or 21mm.</p>

<p>The manual focus 20mm f/2.8 is a solid choice. I've also used the 20mm f/3.5 but wasn't pleased with the way it handled distant subjects. If you're working mostly close up, the f/3.5 is great. It isn't affected by flare very much, either. The f/2.8 is good all-around, though a bit weaker than the f/3.5 with close-up work and flare.</p>

<p>The 20mm F/4 AIs I find to be very nice, but its also hard to find because it was made in relatively limited quantities. I see them on eBay for cheap as $200-300 occasionally.</p>

<p>I bought my 20mm f/2.8 AF-D for $264 brand new. </p>

<p>Another lens for consideration (I got one 2-3 years ago) is the old Tamron Adaptall SP 17mm f/3.5. They're less expensive than Nikon ( I see KEH has one in EX condition for $179 (you must supply your own mount)). I've used it on a variety of bodies (which is why I like the Adaptall mount) and been pleased with the results. It has a little CA wide open, but that clears up by f5.6 or so. Most people have said its performance is similar to Olympus, better than Minolta, slightly below Nikon.</p>

I am very happy with the Sigma 15-30mm EX DG. It's an

autofocus lens, but has a nice substantial manual focus

ring. It has an aperture ring, allowing use on older bodies.

Distortion is admirably low across the whole (film) frame. I

like the contrast and colour rendition too. It can be found for

$300 or so.

<p>I shot with the 18-35 many years on my film cameras - the distortion never bothered me - but of course it depends on what you shoot and how critical you are. I also have a 20/4 Ai and a 20/2.8 AF; I am happy with the older one but find the AF version needs to be stopped down to at least f/5.6 for the corners to start shaping up.<br>

I believe photozone has tested a bad example of the lens - someone I know send his copy for a comparison and the results (unfortunately unpublished) were much better.</p>

<p>I've just read Photozone's 18-35 review for <a href="http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00aduj">another thread</a>, and it was deeply uncomplimentary about the corner performance. Are people having better experiences than their sample? (I may just have misadvised someone...)</p>

<p>The Tamron SP 17mm had a good reputation for its time, but I wasn't impressed by it. I find that my tiny 20mm f/3.5 Ai Nikkor is better, but then it is that few degrees less wide. KR raves about the Tokina 17mm f/3.5 RMC, but I have to severely disagree with him. Either I have a particularly poor sample, or KR needs his eyes tested. Between the Tokina and Tamron, the Tamron is marginally better, but neither are really up to modern standards WRT to corner definition and lateral CA.</p>

<p>I briefly tried a 20mm f/2.8 Ai-S Nikkor and found it an improvement on the Ai 20mm f/3.5, but not enough to persuade me to buy it! So all-in-all +1 to recommending the f/2.8 20mm Nikkor.</p>

<p>Agreed with the others on the 20 f/2.8. I opted for the AiS one (back when I still used lenses that were not 50 or 85), but I understand that the AF version is also excellent. I didn't spend much time comparing them; I just bought the AiS version because I use the DoF scale an awful lot, and AF lenses don't have a whole lot there.</p>

<p>When shooting landscapes, I like to be able to set infinity focus to the right hatch mark of whatever aperture I am using, and not bother focusing. At f/11 and lower, it hasn't let me down yet.</p>

<p>Nikon 20mm and/or 24mm f2.8 AIS lenses are really good, lightweight, sharp with the all important depth of field scale for hyperfocal focusing. I've got the Tamron SP17mm too, it is okay, haven't used it seriously in a while, noticed recently it actually has a fingerprint inside the rear element. So much for their quality control and my eyesight for not noticing that years ago!</p>

<p>Thanks for the replies and helpful info,<br>

@Zach I do the same for landscapes, with maybe erring slightly on the safe side. <br /><br /><br>

@ Richard This brings up a new question, I wonder if the 20mm 2.8 AF is better resistant to ghosts and flare than the 2.8 ais. I've heard the optics are the same, or basically same, so I wonder if maybe with the more modern version there is better coating and thus less ghosts. <br>

If anyone has any info on this?<br>

Also has anyone had much experience with the 18mm 3.5 ais? That one seems to maybe be out of my price range. <br>

I'm all but decided to either go with either the 20/2.8 AIS or AF </p>

 

<p>I have heard good thing about the Voigtlander 20mm f3.5 Color Skopar SL II which may come in around your budget. It is manual focus, but with a chip, and if it is anything like its 40mm brother then it will be made to an extremely high standard. The 40mm is as good as my CZ 35mm f2 ZF.<br />I would investigate that too before taking the plunge on rather ancient lens designs.</p>

<p>Try looking at the Sigma 20mm. I bought one on the strength of a review in Photozone and I have not been disappointed. Another very good lens is Nikkor 24mm PC which is a great lens for all sorts of applications. The only downsides are cost (ouch), and it is manual focus.</p>

<blockquote>Try looking at the Sigma 20mm. I bought one on the strength of a review in Photozone and I have not been disappointed.</blockquote>

 

<p><i>Really?</i> I guess if you use it stopped down enough it appears to be okay, but I thought "ooh, an f/1.8 wide angle", then tried one in a shop and discovered that it's really <i>not</i> an f/1.8 wide angle - at least if you want to see the wide bits of the frame at a fast aperture. I wasn't expecting much at f/1.8 when I tried one, but not much is what you get. But that was one experiment on a D700 in a shop, so maybe my test conditions don't matter to you.</p>

<p>The Nikkor AI 20/F3.5 with the 52MM filter thread is a gem. The one with the 72MM filter thread, not so much. The 24/F2.8 in any of it's guises is also a terrific lens.</p>

<p>I've used a Voigtländer 20/3.5 for a few years and will keep using it. Mechanical quality is good, size is very small and the image quality is good. The drawbacks are corner softness at large apertures (although in a far more pleasant way than e.g. the Nikkor 24/2.8, if you're into that), it's not particularly fast and due to being a slowish wideangle it can be difficult to tell when the focus is accurate. Highlights are good overall contrast and excellent resistance to flare.<br>

Secondhand options tend to offer better value (although depends completely on what kind of deal you get), but come with some drawbacks. Fact of life is that good wideangles cost, so you have to decide which aspects of image quality are important to you and make the decision based on those.</p>

<p>Reuben, I can't comment on the 20mm f/2.8 AF, but my experience with the f/3.5 and f/2.8 MF versions is: both are good; the f/3.5 does better shooting into the sun, and the f/2.8 suffers a bit in those situations.</p>

<p>Seconder to the 18-35 f3.5-4.5AF. Just great on an FM2n and FE2, screams on an F4s. </p>

<p>I am going for the 20mm Voigtlander for Canon. I'm finally going digital after Canon 6D can give me what I want at a non-M9 price! I use Ken Rockwell for advice. Some call him a moron for his reviews, bUT, what they don't know is that he is a pro photographer and a scientist/engineer. He conceived the world’s first dedicated digital colorspace converter chip, the TMC2272, back in 1990 when he worked at TRW LSI Products. He’s been working with the matrix math, hardware and software that does this for decades. He also coined the word “gigacolors,” for use with 36-bit and 48-bit color data. See his velvia 5x4s on his site and realise he knows what he is talking about. He only reviews items he uses/intends to use/etc. (His main shooter is the 40mm Voigt. pancake. I'll add that and a 100mm Tokina Macro for the full setup. The Tokina is so good, as is the 6D, that I wont need longer teles, just crop and blow-up. That's 2 pancakes, a lightweight tele/macro and the lightweight 6D,plus a flash. The heavy lifting can then be done in the gym, not on 'safari').</p>