Wide angle lens

<p>I am upgrading to the D800E and I have been borrowing a 16 -35mm lens. I really am lost when it comes to what wide angle lens to purchase. I am a portrait photographer mainly, but I have some commercial contracts that require wide angle shots. Please let me know your thoughts - I have about 1300 to spend on the lens</p>

 

<p>I'm not sure how it performs on a full frame body, but the Tokina AT-X 11-16mm f2.8 is an excellent lens. It's considered by most to be as sharp or sharper than the equivalent Nikon or Canon and is half the price (between $700-800 in Canada and, I think, roughly the same in the US). It also has that very solid pro feel sometimes missing on 3rd party lenses.</p>

<p>The Tokina 11-16mm/f2.8 is a DX type lens. It wouldn't make sense to get that for the D800E, which is FX. Nikon's 16-35mm/f4 AF-S VR should be a decent choice and the OP is already familiar with it.</p>

<p>I think the 16-35/4 is excellent. It has a lot of curvature at 16mm but easily fixed in PS. at 20 and 24 it's superb. The 17-35/2.8 of the previous generation has its fans still but I think with the new vibration reduction in the 16-35 you can do even better in low light and the image quality is superb. Some initial high praise was heard 'round these parts for a Tamron, I believe, 16-28mm that was recently released. You should do a little research on it. Less field curvature one heard. I have the 16-35 and love it; it has never disappointed me. I use it on the considerably more forgiving D700 sensor. It's said to be soft in the corners at 35mm but a. I've not seen that on mine, and b. the corners are all the way in the corners.... (I know, professionals are more responsible than we art-oriented amateurs, but still.) anyway those are the known drawbacks of the 16-35, they're minor, and it's in your budget range. By all reports the 14-24 is unassailably great but it's a lot more $$ and it doesn't sound as if you need it. </p>

<p>Robert, I see you're after a 'Wide Angle' for some commercial shots that need it, but as a Portrait Photographer <strong><em>mainly,</em> </strong>what have you already got so as to judge any overlap in focal length?</p>

<p>When you used the 16-35mm, at what focal length did most of your shots 'happen'? Wide end or Long end?</p>

<p>Bit <em>Left Field</em>, but maybe you don't need a zoom?..:-)</p>

<p>Also depends on wether you want a zoom or a prime is OK, and how wide a lens you need, and the required quality (ok as good as available, but at $1300,- you wil not find a nikkor 14-24 zoom..)..<br>

If you want / need it very wide you could consider a "Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 ll DG HSM" ( the widest you will find currently for FX..)<br>

If 24mm is also ok then maybe a " Tamron AF SP 24-70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD " could also be a good choice for the price range...</p>

<p>Just checking the OP is in USA/CANADA...?? He has 1300 to spend.... :-)</p>

<p><strong>£</strong>1300 would get you a long way!... in-fact as far as a new Nikon 14-24mm......<em><strong> JUST!</strong></em></p>

<p>While it's possible that my 14-24 has been knocked over time and needs a service, it's not perfect at the corners on a D800E, at 14mm when I tended to consider it to be at its best (the middle is fine, but who cares about the middle performance on an ultrawide?) This seems to be corroborated by <a href="http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/03/d800-lens-selection">others</a> who have tried this lens on a D800 - but it probably is better than anything else that wide (including the new 15mm Zeiss, from the <a href="http://www.3d-kraft.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=127:uwa-comparison&catid=40:camerasandlenses&Itemid=2">only review</a> I've seen). However, if 21mm is wide enough for you, the 21mm f/2.8 Zeiss prime <a href="http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/nikon1424_21mm/nikon1424_21mm1.html">seems to be</a> in a class of its own, and I'm planning to get one when finances permit. You'll probably struggle with budget for both those lenses, though, in which case the 16-35 isn't far from next best thing.</p>

<p>I'd get the 16-35 and not look back. The 17-35 was excellent, and from all reports, this lens is even better. A zoom in this range is a must for all kinds of photography these days.</p>

<blockquote>A zoom in this range is a must for all kinds of photography these days.</blockquote>

 

<p>! After the <a href="http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00asjL">assertion</a> that a "basic lens kit" is the set of f/2.8 pro lenses, I'm now given another chance to boggle. While I like my 14-24 (corners on the D800 aside), I suspect there are plenty of people from <i>some</i> kinds of photography for whom nothing wider than 35mm (or even normal) is needed. Macro and many sports spring to mind. Let's not over-do it.<br />

<br />

My belief (I don't own one, because I already had the 14-24) is that the 16-35 is appreciably softer away from the centre than the 14-24 is, at the wide end. Depending on what you shoot, that may not remotely matter, but I'd not expect optical perfection. But there's the rub - not very much does give good optical performance with an ultrawide field of view - which is one reason I'm looking at getting a 5x4...</p>

Do you need a zoom? The 15mm 3.8 AI-s is relatively small and light - and if you don't like it, you can resell it for more money in a year

(prices on MF lenses are creeping up). You'll have money left over even if you buy a minty one.

<p>"A zoom in this range is a must for all kinds of photography these days."</p>

<p>Really? Give me a break. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>"A zoom in this range is a must for all kinds of photography these days."<br>

Really? Give me a break.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Luis, notice I didn't say "all photography" I said "all KINDS of photography". What do you seriously dispute about that?</p>

<p>The OP is a commercial photographer who has found he needs wide angle. He's probably not an artist who can take 3 days to set up the "beauty shot". For that kind of work, every single commercial photographer I've known for YEARS is using a 16/17 - 35 zoom (with regard to full-frame).</p>

<p>I'm not addressing the needs of the OP, only the "...must for all kinds of photography..." statement. All kinds of photography covers all bases from where I stand. If you narrow that to commercial work, you change the scope of the statement in my opinion.</p>

 

<p>besides the 16-35--which by all accounts is an excellent lens, the choices are: nikon 14-24, nikon 17-35, and tokina 16-28. only the 16-35 and 17-35 take filters. if that matters, i would narrow it to one of those two, which in turn may come down to whether constant 2.8 or VR is a requirement. if that doesnt matter, the 14-24 has the best IQ out of all. the tokina is very good optically---better than 17-35 and 16-35, according to DxO Mark, but not quite up to the 14-24's benchmark. honestly, i dont think you can go too far wrong with any of those 4 lenses. there's also a lot of used copies of the 17-35 floating around.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I'm not addressing the needs of the OP, only the "...must for all kinds of photography..." statement. All kinds of photography covers all bases from where I stand. If you narrow that to commercial work, you change the scope of the statement in my opinion.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think the phrase "all kinds of" is not ever meant to mean <em><strong>all</strong></em>:<br>

<br />"I can cook all kinds of food in my toaster oven."<br>

"I can do all kinds of things while driving to work."</p>

<p>Not really meant to ever be taken literally.</p>

<p>It would be helpful to know what type of "commercial contracts" the OP has in mind.</p>

<p>For some types of photography anything wider than 28 mm will introduce so much distortion as to render the image unusable. Imagine shooting a desk or a dining room table for a catalog with a 20 mm lens. It would bear no resemblance to the shape of the actual item. (16 or 14 would be WORSE!).</p>

<p>It's important to understand the OP's intended application before making recommendations.</p>

<p>@ Andrew re 5x4 "ultrawide" - first, ain't really no such thing as an ultrawide lens for 5x4. 58mm is about as wide as you'd want to use if edge and corner quality are important, and that's only the equivalent of a 17mm on full-frame. Secondly, the corners will likely be just as soft and awful as a moderate quality FF ultrawide. Thirdly, any decent UW for 5x4 is gonna <strong>cost</strong> big time. You'll be looking at lenses like the Super Symmar XL or Super Angulon XL, all of which need to be stopped down to f/22 for optimum coverage and sharp(ish) corners. So I hope you like still-life or landscape work. Lastly, using a very short lens on anything other than a monorail design of 5x4 fitted with a bag-bellows is a nightmare, or downright impossible. BTW, Robert White's is aptly named, since some of the prices on his website will make you turn white ;-0.</p>

<p>WRT the OP's wideangle recommendation: I really think we need a bit more of a clue as to what application(s) are foreseen. A couple of MF or AF primes might well fit the bill.</p>

<p>The Nikon 16-35 is an excellent lens with the D800,I had the Nikon 17-35 2.8,good lens but not as sharp as the 16-35,the 16mm distortion is easily corrected in Raw or PT lens.</p>

<p>Rodeo. I don't think Andrew meant he was going to 4x5 for ultra-wide equivalents. I think he meant he would stand really really far away. </p>

<p>Just kidding. But there are many good 75mm lenses for 4x5 -- especially considering some of them can cover 5x7 or more. What's that in our 35mm/FF terms? 20mm? Yes, you should stop down and yes you should use a monorail camera to do all of what LF <em>can</em> do, but these are reasonable expectations. Anyone's who's shooting 20mm or wider at f/2.8 and expecting to see sharpness at the outside of the frame is a little batty. </p>

<p>RJ, Vince, thank you for the bad news. Maybe I'd been unduly optimistic about the abilities of the 65mm and 47mm Super-Angulons - though, used, they're reasonably affordable (as in "both lenses and a used monorail for less than the 21mm Zeiss"). Methinks I should relocate this discussion to a thread on the large format forums, which I'll kick off shortly, but I'd value your input. For the record, in large format, I mostly care about f/16-f/22 performance - I care about f/5.6 on a D800 because of diffraction. That may or may not matter to the OP, though. Even stopped down, in the samples I've seen, I'm not all that blown away by the Zeiss 21mm in the corners, alas.<br />

<br />

I was having a longer look at my 14-24 output over the weekend. Mine seems to have extreme field curvature issues at the corners - I found a couple of images where the corners were actually reasonably sharp, but at a significantly different distance from most of the rest of the frame. It's possible that mine's taken a whack at some point, or I've been slightly too exuberant slamming it between 14mm and 24mm - I'll be interested in knowing if anyone else can report similar issues. Otherwise, I may start trying to generate focus-stacked 14mm images (if I have enough slack in my focus ring).</p>

<p>Andrew -- that's interesting on your 14-24. It runs counter to what one hears / reads about it but I've not had one or used one. Have you played with fine tuning it for the D800? I'm not real clear on how this works but it's in the manual and many on here have done it and can advise. </p>

<p>I <i>have</i> fine-tuned my 14-24, at least for the centre. It's pretty accurate for centre focus and it's sharp across most of the frame (especially by f/5.6), but the corners are certainly bothering me - but I can't guarantee that nothing nasty has happened to mine in the few years I've owned it. Hence I'd be interested in knowing whether mine's unusual in this respect! Lensrentals reports that the corners of the 14-24 never quite sharpen up on a D800, but then the same is probably true of any alternative; the issues I'm seeing may be worse than "not sharp".</p>

<p>Andrew, any chance you could run one of your RAWs through DxO? It's sure to have a module for your body-lens combo. </p>

<p>If it doesn't get much better, corners-wise, I guess it's had a knock!</p>

<p>Equally, this.. <a href="http://www.lenstip.com/295.4-Lens_review-Nikon_Nikkor_AF-S_14-24_mm_f_2.8G_ED_Image_resolution.html">http://www.lenstip.com/295.4-Lens_review-Nikon_Nikkor_AF-S_14-24_mm_f_2.8G_ED_Image_resolution.html</a></p>

<p>is interesting... it's IQ/focal length/aperture graph is a little unusual...:-)</p>

<p>Hi Mike. I'll give DxO a go, but if it really is field curvature I'm seeing, I'm not sure what it can do about it. (I'm seeing most of infinity in focus, blurry trees at the edge of frame, and rocks by my feet in the frame corner in focus - or at least, sharper than the trees.) It's possible that I'm imagining it - I should do some more formal tests. Otherwise, I'll brace myself for a Nikon service fee, otherwise. Still, it should be cheaper than a Zeiss.<br />

<br />

That's an interesting review. I've always understood (and, I think, seen) that the 14-24 is sharper at the 14mm end - or at least, more exceptional at the 14mm end. I'm interested to see the reverse reported.</p>