Which 20 to 35mm prime lense

Hi!

Sold the nice Nikkor 12-24mm f4 for money matters, bulk and wheight.

Now, I miss something wider than the 50mm 1.8 e-serie.

I am actual using a D40 paired with D70. I will soon replace the latter for the D300 for birding and outdoor photography while keeping the D40 for low-light and hiking.

One of these days, I might change the D40 if an affordable and portable FF option is released.

That is to say, I woul like a «wide» prime between 20 and 35mm that could :

• be use on DX and FX (even if it is not really wide on DX)
• light
• fast
• Af on motor less bodies
• less than 1000$

According to my actual research, the Sigma 24mm macro and the Nikon 35mm f2 would be the best options / compromises.

Any advices and experiences to share?

What about 35 / 1.8?
It is very cheap lens, light, and capable of great results.
I use it on D300s and D40.

Regards

I had a look at my databse ( http://www.lreviews.info ) and found a rather positive test for the Voiglander 20mm pancake lens:

http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/504-voigtlander20f35eosff

It's only as fast as 3.5, but it is very light indeed and an acceptable super ww lens on full format.

lreviews said:

I had a look at my databse ( http://www.lreviews.info ) and found a rather positive test for the Voiglander 20mm pancake lens:

Click to expand...

But without AF.

alexgodro said:

Hi!

Sold the nice Nikkor 12-24mm f4 for money matters, bulk and wheight.

Now, I miss something wider than the 50mm 1.8 e-serie.

I am actual using a D40 paired with D70. I will soon replace the latter for the D300 for birding and outdoor photography while keeping the D40 for low-light and hiking.

One of these days, I might change the D40 if an affordable and portable FF option is released.

That is to say, I woul like a «wide» prime between 20 and 35mm that could :

• be use on DX and FX (even if it is not really wide on DX)
• light
• fast
• Af on motor less bodies
• less than 1000$

According to my actual research, the Sigma 24mm macro and the Nikon 35mm f2 would be the best options / compromises.

Any advices and experiences to share?

Click to expand...

The Nikon 35mm f/2 is AF-D (meaning screw drive). So it does not meet your criteria.

I have the Sigma 20mm f1.8 macro. It is a very fun lens. Fairly wide on FX. Next to no wide-angle distortion on DX. I imagine the 24mm is of similar quality.

btw: keeping the d40 for lowlight over the d300 is not right. Check the ISO performance. The d300 spanks it.

--

See my plan (in my profile) for what I shoot with. See my gallery for images I find amusing.

I second the 35/1.8 endorsement. It is so inexpensive at less than $200, and optically superb, that there is no reason not to have one even if you do eventually buy a $1,000 FX lens.

Example

Not many options.

As for Nikon - the 35 1.8 is the ONLY option sticking to your parameters... Add to that - you would only be able to use the 35 at close to maximum aperture at close distance on FF...
It blows, I know.
John

alexgodro said:

Hi!

Sold the nice Nikkor 12-24mm f4 for money matters, bulk and wheight.

Now, I miss something wider than the 50mm 1.8 e-serie.

I am actual using a D40 paired with D70. I will soon replace the latter for the D300 for birding and outdoor photography while keeping the D40 for low-light and hiking.

One of these days, I might change the D40 if an affordable and portable FF option is released.

That is to say, I woul like a «wide» prime between 20 and 35mm that could :

• be use on DX and FX (even if it is not really wide on DX)
• light
• fast
• Af on motor less bodies
• less than 1000$

According to my actual research, the Sigma 24mm macro and the Nikon 35mm f2 would be the best options / compromises.

Any advices and experiences to share?

Click to expand...

--
http://www.OneFrameStudios.com
http://www.pbase.com/happypoppeye

The 35mm f/1.8 DX is a nice lens and is pretty darn inexpensive as well. It does have a bit more barrel distortion that I would like for the prime, but it's pretty easy to fix in Lightroom 3.

For really wide shots, I have a Tokina 11-16, but I'm kind of feeling that I'm missing the 24mm spot and have been thinking about the Sigma 24mm f/1.8 (the 20mm would be a bit better, but the fact that it cannot take 77mm filters and I can approximate 20mm with my Tokina at 16mm and crop).

I think if you ignore the requirement to be able to use the lens on FF, you have a few choices...

a) Nikon 35mm F1.8 DX
b) Sigma 30mm F1.4 DX

There really aren't any other choices, except the Nikon 24mm F1.4 which is FF but is also more like $2k instead of $1k.

If you ignore the requirement to be able to AF on the D40 or other bodies without a focus motor, then there are a lot more choices as well that would work on FF. The voigtlander 20mm, Nikon has a few 24 mm and 28 mm FF primes with screwdrive AF, etc., and the 35mm AF-D F2 which you already identified.

If you can afford it I'd go with the Zeiss T* Distagon 35mm f2, which I bought about 2 months ago.

The image quality is 1st rate but I suppose that can depend on what you want from your images, colour rendition and sharpness is important to me.

I thought long and hard about which focal length and wouldn't go wider because of convergence at the edges from 28mm and below. It's noticeable.

Hope this helps
Neal K

happypoppeye said:

Not many options.

As for Nikon - the 35 1.8 is the ONLY option sticking to your parameters... Add to that - you would only be able to use the 35 at close to maximum aperture at close distance on FF...
It blows, I know.
John

Click to expand...

How do you figure? The 35mm f1.8 is DX and so does not meet his criteria. While the Sigma 20mm, 24mm and 28mm (all with f1.8, macro, HSM) also all are FX and have focus motors.

--

See my plan (in my profile) for what I shoot with. See my gallery for images I find amusing.

The Zeiss 35 is known as basically the best 35 you can buy. If you go that way just know it's manual focus only and get the ZF.2 version which will meter with any nikon body.

Fantastic lens - with the rangefinder function of the D5000 - it's a really fun lens also...
John

Neal K said:

If you can afford it I'd go with the Zeiss T* Distagon 35mm f2, which I bought about 2 months ago.

The image quality is 1st rate but I suppose that can depend on what you want from your images, colour rendition and sharpness is important to me.

I thought long and hard about which focal length and wouldn't go wider because of convergence at the edges from 28mm and below. It's noticeable.

Hope this helps
Neal K

Click to expand...

--
http://www.OneFrameStudios.com
http://www.pbase.com/happypoppeye

Not with HSM. I used one on a Canon mount (28mm) and it had a motor. I assumed the Nikon version did too. Seems none of these have motors on a Nikon mount. Still work on FX & DX...

So the only way to meet ALL your goals is to drop one of them. The Nikon 24m f1.4 for example meets all but price. The 35mm f1.8g meets all but FX. The 3 sigmas and the Nikon 35mm f/2 meet all but focus motors

Bjorn_L said:

happypoppeye said:

Not many options.

As for Nikon - the 35 1.8 is the ONLY option sticking to your parameters... Add to that - you would only be able to use the 35 at close to maximum aperture at close distance on FF...
It blows, I know.
John

Click to expand...

How do you figure? The 35mm f1.8 is DX and so does not meet his criteria. While the Sigma 20mm, 24mm and 28mm (all with f1.8, macro, HSM) also all are FX and have focus motors.

--

See my plan (in my profile) for what I shoot with. See my gallery for images I find amusing.

Click to expand...

--

See my plan (in my profile) for what I shoot with. See my gallery for images I find amusing.

alexgodro said:

• be use on DX and FX (even if it is not really wide on DX)
• light
• fast
• Af on motor less bodies
• less than 1000$

Click to expand...

Well... not a lot of choices there given DX/FX and AF-S. This is what folks have been raking Nikon about: not enough FX, AF-S lenses. OTOH, if you let go of AF for wide angle shots, where most applications allow you to MF at leisure, you can find a lot of excellent AI-S glass that is fast, light and fun to use. A D300 with metering for non-CPU lenses (or a D700) would be nice... a point which shows that sometimes the body does open up more possibilities so that you can use high quality lens that won't break the bank.

One non-prime option for you to consider: the AF-S 17-35 f2.8. It's wide, fast, you can find it used for around $1K, produces very good IQ for me..... but it's not light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's easy to argue about equipment and technique, but hard to argue with a good photograph -- and more difficult to capture one .



Gallery and blog: http://esfotoclix.com
Special selections: http://esfotoclix.com/store
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Bjorn_L said:

How do you figure? The 35mm f1.8 is DX and so does not meet his criteria. While the Sigma 20mm, 24mm and 28mm (all with f1.8, macro, HSM) also all are FX and have focus motors.

Click to expand...

The 35 1.8 DX lens can be used with FX, in non-crop mode, with "mild" vignetting. I've tried it, and like the respondent suggests, for nearby object, not too bad. I wouldn't use it that way, but in a pinch, it's usable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's easy to argue about equipment and technique, but hard to argue with a good photograph -- and more difficult to capture one .



Gallery and blog: http://esfotoclix.com
Special selections: http://esfotoclix.com/store
Wedding & Portrait: http://esfotoclix.com/wedevent
Flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22061657@N03

Thanks to everyone,

Looks like I must drop one criteria which will be the af-s.

So I will reduces the options to Voïltanger pancake 20mm or a nikkor 24mm.

Now I need to look for which 24mm).

This way, someone with both FF and DX bodies will cover to nice range, respectively 24mm and 36mm.

Thanks again !

Alexa

alexgodro said:

Thanks to everyone,

Looks like I must drop one criteria which will be the af-s.

So I will reduces the options to Voïltanger pancake 20mm or a nikkor 24mm.

Now I need to look for which 24mm).

Click to expand...

I've used both the Nikkor AF 24mm 2.8 non-D and the Sigma MF 24mm 2.8 macro. Multicoated super-wide II which I still have.

I bought the Nikkor 24mm to have as walkaround prime for the DX-body I use but wasn't thrilled with how it performed. After having looked that what other lensmakers offered I stumbled on a used sample of that Sigma in a local store and got it cheaply.

The macro is rather some close focus 18cm / 0.18m but pretty useful and sharp wide open.
I posted some samples taken with the Sigma in an other thread some time ago.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1030&message=35608802

2-3 days after I had got the Sigma it was clear to me that the Nikon was going to go. I could have afforded to keep both had I wanted to do so, but I didn't see the need.

Some people have mentioned barrel distortion but I've not seen much of it. Or I'm just bad at spotting it. There is very few things I don't like with it.

One is the aperture ring which is stiff and sounds cracky but works well and the build quality is otherwise rather good. The focusing on my sample is a very little stiff but then I don't know for how long it had been unused by previous owner before it landed in that store. The version with AF is certainly better.

It is also as small (almost identical) as the Nikkor AF 50mm 1.8D when I compared them.

The Sigma 24mm 1.8 is an other one which I've tried but is noticably bulkier and heavier than the 2.8 and performed only marginally better. Not enough to justify the weight and bulk. I had hoped for more of the same.

Good advice!