which wide angle lens to use with D300

<p>Hi,<br>

I am using a D300 and FE2. Personally I don't like wide angle lens because of the distortion and because it is<br>

difficult to compose. But sometimes I find wide angle is necessary in shooting landscape and architecture.</p>

<p>So I plan to buy a wide angle lens, one lens for both D300 and FE2. I figure that maybe I should go for a<br>

20mm, since on D300 it will be 30mm, which is in the wide angle range.</p>

<p>My budget is 200-400. I prefer prime lens, since it is cheap and delivers good IQ. And for landscape, AF is not important, large aperture is also not important.</p>

<p>Right now I am looking for 20/2.8, 20/3.5, 20/4.</p>

<p>I prefer any comments about the above three lenses, or recommendation of other lenses, including third party lenses.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

<p>Unfortunately, cheap and delivering good image quality frequently don't go together. Good wide angle lenses that can work well with both the D300 and EF2 are also uncommon due to the different formats and the 3-decade differences between their designs.</p>

<p>I would suggest buying different wide lenses for those two cameras.</p>

<p>Thanks Shun!<br>

I agree with your opinion. That's why I wanted to consider the 20mm, since it is 30mm on D300, so is much wider than my other lens (the widest I have so far is the 35mm/1.8g).<br>

Do you think whether it worth to buy a 20mm and use it on both FE2 and D300?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Do you think whether it worth to buy a 20mm and use it on both FE2 and D300?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If I did, I wouldn't give you the earlier suggestion to buy two different wide-angles lenses for the two cameras.</p>

<p>20mm is quite extreme on the FE2, and those older 20mm lenses are not the best on the D300. To stay within your $400 budget, you pretty much have to get a 3rd-party 12-24mm/f4 DX type lens used for the D300, and those lenses are not going to be ideal on your FE2.</p>

<p>Thank you Shun! Appreciate your advice! I will think about that.</p>

<p>I own both the 20/2.8 AF and the 20/4 AI - the latter beats in former in every aspect if you don't need the AF. I rarely use the 20/2.8 on a DX camera (and not only for the fact that it technically is my wife's) - and I much prefer the 20/4 if I feel the need to use a prime. But - as Shun pointed out, what's wide on the FE2 is only very moderately wide on the D300 - so choosing one lens to fit both bodies may not be the best. I know that you wanted primes - but one lens to consider might be the 18-35/3.5-4.5; it gives you moderately wide on the D300 and close to ultrawide on the FE2 - with fairly decent optical quality (if you can avoid shooting wide open) and you should be able to find a used one within your price range. Another caveat is that distortion will be higher with the zoom, especially at the wide end.</p>

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>There are 2 third-party lenses that you can consider for your two bodies.</p>

<p>First, if size / weight does not matter: Rokinon (Samyang) 14mm f2.8 - at Amazon you find the chipped version at around $400 and the oldest non-chipped version at around $350. Apart of the moustache distortion this lens seems to be a winner. I do not have a direct experience with it but recently I tested in a shop the new 35mm f1.4 from Samyang and I was blown by the IQ of this very inexpensive lens. The advantage of Rokinon 14/2.8 is that is really wide on the full frame and quite wide on your D300.</p>

<p>If size / weight matter... then a sweet lens is (Cosina) Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 SL II Color Skopar. I own this lens... it is quite soft in corners on full frame up to f5.6 but has little distortions and very nice color rendition. The biggest advantage is it's portability... I keep it almost all the time in my bag even I rarely shoot wider than 24mm. It costs new about $550 but you may find a used copy within your budget. It is also chipped so you control the lens on the digital bodies exclusively from camera. I am happier with this lens than with the Nikkor 20mm f2.8 AF-D that I own too.</p>

<p>The only wide I have used in both formats is a 24mm; obviously with different purposes, as the crop factor makes it very different in each camera.</p>

<p>If you like primes, this focal lenght sounds reasonable; moderately wide and very wide. A shorter or longer option will be or extremely wide in one camera, or simply too long in the other.</p>

<p>The 20/3.5 UD-Auto (AI'd) is awesome on my FM2n and D700, not so good on D200. It even came with a screw in 72mm metal lenscap! Shows very minor chromatic aberration when slides are projected wall high. Landscape and Architecture both require small apertures, so why go for 2.8?</p>

I'd second the Nikon 24mm 2.8D. which I'm currently using on my D300. 35mm equivelant is a great length and on film you'll have wide without getting into ultrawide territory. I do this so I don't need to use a zoom, maybe you are feeling the same way. I wanted AF, but there are probably better MF alternatives around.

<p>i recently picked up a used, minty tokina 17/3.5 which is really wide on FX (or 35mm) and decently wide on DX. a very nice prime with excellent build and optics.</p>

<p>I have D300s and F3. For both of them I use Nikkor 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 D. That gives you standard wide angle ( 28mm ) on D300s and very dramatic 18mm on film. Personally, I like this combination pretty much. </p>

<p>Thank you all for the advice! I think I will buy a 24mm/2.8 (AI or AF).</p>

<p>The 24mm AF-D will be a 36mm equivalent on the D300. This is popularly thought of as "wide" but is only 20% wider than the true full-frame normal of 43mm and is only slightly farther (proportionately) from true normal than the so-called "normal" 50mm lens! The 35-36mm equivalent provides a very nice field of view but it's not really wide angle.</p>