Does anyone here use a 28mm lens?

What's your recommendation on a specific 28mm prime lens?

If I felt 28mm to be wide enough, would it be at all wise of me to cash in my 18-55 kit lens and 28-105 3.5/4.5 USM lenses in order to get a 28mm?
Your thoughts? I have a 50mm f1.8 which I would not part with.
Bob

I use a 28 1.8 at weddings a LOT. Have both a Canon and a Sigma version of the lens. Like both of them. I don't pay much attention to which gets loaded in my "prime" bag and which goes into my "backup" bag.

DIPics

BobT said:

What's your recommendation on a specific 28mm prime lens?
If I felt 28mm to be wide enough, would it be at all wise of me to
cash in my 18-55 kit lens and 28-105 3.5/4.5 USM lenses in order to
get a 28mm?
Your thoughts? I have a 50mm f1.8 which I would not part with.
Bob

Click to expand...

I've got the 28/1.8, great lens, perhaps a little low contrast at 1.8, but from just beyond 2.0... its a good performer. Zero complaints. On a 1.6x crop body, its my standard lens.

I also have the 28/2.8 (EF, like the 1.8 I mentioned above). Also zero issues, except I wanted a faster lens for everyday use. However, when I go for "small" the 2.8 version is very compact... and fits the ticket nicely.
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Livin' the blues, one note at a time

My 70-300 IS USM lens sees the most action. This leaves me with these other 3 that collectively see maybe 20-25% of the other action--total.

I would think that I should keep the 50mm f1.8 lens, but could part with my 28-105mm 3.5/4.5; leaving my 18-55 kit lens for any real wide stuff.

How would either the 28 f1.8 or 2.8 fare in a image quality comparason with the 28-105? The answer to that question may well determine what I decide to do.
Thanks

I dont have a 28-105 to compare them to.

The 28/2.8 gets poo-poo'd as being a low end lens, and from the mechanical standpoint, it is. No USM, cheaper (and lighter!!) construction. However, its imaging qualities are not too bad, especially considering its cost. Fairly contrasty, quite acceptable quality of imaging at medium lens openings. There is some falloff in brightness at the edges wide open, and as we know, digital magnifies the vignetting effect. Stopped down, even a little, its quite nice, and has less falloff than the 18-55 at its comparable (28mm) setting. The focus is fast despite lack of USM because not much needs to be moved to make it focus.

The 28/1.8 is much more robustly made. It accepts a petal type hood. It has internal baffles to help against any flair from being formed. Wide open, not bad, stopped down even 2/3 stop, and its very very nice. The 2.8 is not noisy, but the 1.8 is absolutely silent in its focus. Vignetting is minimum on a 1.6x crop, even wide open (just a little, but it gets better when stopped down just a little bit).

Both lenses are free enough of barrel distortion as to qualify as totally acceptable, except for critical technical use Both are relatively flare free. Neither has bad chromatic aberration issues, but the 1.8 is more highly corrected.

My opinion still stands - if you need the speed and extra little bit of IQ, the 1.8 is better. If you're more interested in having a small, very light 28, then the 2.8 is better. I tend to grab the 28/1.8 more often than not.
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Livin' the blues, one note at a time

BanderSnatchReverb said:

My opinion still stands - if you need the speed and extra little
bit of IQ, the 1.8 is better. If you're more interested in having
a small, very light 28, then the 2.8 is better. I tend to grab the
28/1.8 more often than not.

Click to expand...

I've thought about getting this lens off and off for quite awhile. I've been looking for a lighter alternative to my 17-40L and something wider than the 50mm 1.8. I've just been put off by the bad reviews -- you've convinced me that this lens might be worth another look. Thanks!
Anthony
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/buicksrock/

i have the 28mm f/1.8 (the newer USM version, as opposed to the f/2.8 which is an older version), and i love it. since i got it it rarely leaves my camera. only when i want to use a zoom (walkaround situations) will i switch it for my 28-135IS

i highly recommend it, it equates to about a normal prime, which is always a fun tool to have

one thing though, i recommend against selling the kit lens for it. a couple of reasons -- first of all, you won't get much for the kit lens. $40? $60 if you're lucky? that isn't going to put a huge dent in the price of a new lens. on top of that, although i like primes, and i love primes, it's always a very smart thing to have a zoom lens lying around, just in case.

selling the kit lens won't get you a lot of money, so it's not worth giving up both your zooms for a prime. keep the 18-55, and add a 28mm prime.

Oh definitely keep the kit lens. Its imaging, while not fantastic, is not terrible in light bright enough to allow stopping down just a stop or stop and a half.

Its a good lens when you just dont know what you're getting into, and when all you want is snapshots of friends and relatives at holiday time. It covers a lot of ground, just that others cover it better. Keep it!~
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Livin' the blues, one note at a time

I just checked out the Photodo site, and found that the 2.8 version did better than the 1.8 lens. Interesting.

I bought a 28mm F2.8 and it's a returner to the store, no focus to infinity, extremely weird patterns in RAW, fuzzy at F5.6, probably some serious production errors. i will try to get another one and see if this ones better.
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Wide angle is not wide enough: newyorkpanorama.com

I have the EF 28mm 1.8 and I think it's absolutely fantastic. I shot almost exclusively with the 50mm 1.8 for a long time, but I really felt I was missing some indoor low-light shots because of the focal length. The 28mm on my Rebel XT is juuuust right, and both build quality and performance are excellent.

I recomment not parting with the kit.

the 28 is not wide enough for almost anything you will need, especially in close quarters.
The plus is that it's wider than the 50mm, and thats important.

I have the kit, 28 and 50, and I use most time the kit, sometimes the 50 because of low light performance, but I might use the 28 more.