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Need a cheap (under $200) legacy wide-zoom for A7

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CELLINGTON

CELLINGTON

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Hey guys! I am currently in need of a wide angle lens for my A7 for a shoot coming up. A friend of mine is opening an office suite in March they intend to rent out to small businesses. He asked me to do some shots around the office. Now I have not seen the office yet, but suspect I may need some wider lenses. I just don't have $500, $1000, $1500 to drop for this.

Do you guys have recommendations on any legacy lenses/wide/zoom that are good for shooting interiors? Obviously, they don't need to be fast glass. When I had Canon, I had the Canon 10-22mm when capturing shots around my sister's school. I primarily work with primes for portraits, but liked the zoom aspect for the wide angles.


Do you have any recommendations for the Sony A7?

I currently have:

Sony A7

Sony FE 85mm 1.8

Sony FE 50mm 1.8

Tokina 80-200mm 2.8 (OM Mount)

Olympus 135mm 2.8

Olympus 135mm 3.5

Minolta Rokkor 50mm 1.4
 
Resist the urge to go too wide. Grab a Canon FD 24/2.8 for less than $100 and you should be fine.
 
28's will be even cheaper than 24's, and 20's might generally break your budget, but depends how long you have to shop around.

What are you trying to capture? If you want to make the space look huge, then yea 18-20mm will be good. If you just need wide, but want to show the feel of the space, 24mm will be great. When shooting rentals, we don't go wider than 24mm, because it distorts the space too much and makes it look larger than it is. Real Estate sales however, tend to prefer this, as it gets them in the door. Always a juggling act.
CELLINGTON said:
Mathieu18 said:
Resist the urge to go too wide. Grab a Canon FD 24/2.8 for less than $100 and you should be fine.
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CELLINGTON said:
Mathieu18 said:
Resist the urge to go too wide. Grab a Canon FD 24/2.8 for less than $100 and you should be fine.
Click to expand...
I actually had been considering 20mm, 24mm, and 28mm legacy primes. I've just been hesitant thinking they aren't wide enough for tight spaces. However, they would do a lot better than what I have now without spending overboard. Thanks for the recommendation sir!
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I think that's very good advice.

It's also good to remember that ultrawides aren't really for "fitting everything in" (I'd even argue a fisheye is better at that). Ultrawides are really for getting that extreme perspective you get when you're really close to portions of the scene, and it takes a lot of practice and very careful composition to use them well. Down to about 24-28mm, it's easy. There is a tough learning curve as you get to around 15-17mm, and it is REALLY HARD to use anything wider than that well. I love ultrawides and use them a lot, but I still take 10X as long to compose a shot with a 12mm as with a 24mm.

If you do want to get a "legacy" ultrawide zoom, you should know that basically means a lens made in the last decade. I got an A-mount Sigma 12-24mm for $256 last year, and that's about as cheap as you'll find something rectilinear below 16mm. Of course, I also got an A-mount Sigma 18-35mm for $26 last year... so you can get "ok" ultrawide zooms for not too much... but IQ on my 24mm f/2.8 SSC FD is much better than the 18-35mm.

(Note: all the above, I'm talking FF focal lengths.)
 
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Mathieu18 said:
28's will be even cheaper than 24's, and 20's might generally break your budget, but depends how long you have to shop around.

What are you trying to capture? If you want to make the space look huge, then yea 18-20mm will be good. If you just need wide, but want to show the feel of the space, 24mm will be great. When shooting rentals, we don't go wider than 24mm, because it distorts the space too much and makes it look larger than it is. Real Estate sales however, tend to prefer this, as it gets them in the door. Always a juggling act.
----------------------------------------------
MattParvin.com
The future is actuarial, history is forensic.
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I would be capturing the office space and separate offices for them to feature on their website for potential businesses to lease. So these shots would partially carry the design of the website as well as galleries to sell the space.

There isn't really a specific need to make the spaces look much bigger than they are. It isn't really a million dollar home sale for a realtor so I don't need to exaggerate. I just want to make sure I am prepared to get a good amount.

My friend told me 1500sqft, but I don't think I got clarity on whether that is for the entire suite or per office in the entire suite.

Honestly, if the lens couldn't cover an entire room in one shot, there shouldn't be an issue get a shot of one side of the room and a shot of the other side. I think the 24 or 28mm lenses would be a good start for me as I don't have the luxury of a big budget.
 
Get a 24mm, it'll cost a bit more, but that 4mm is pretty significant indoors. Also consider, you can re-sell the lens when you're done, probably for what you paid for it, so the actual cost is pretty minimal.
 
CELLINGTON said:
Hey guys! I am currently in need of a wide angle lens for my A7 for a shoot coming up. A friend of mine is opening an office suite in March they intend to rent out to small businesses. He asked me to do some shots around the office. Now I have not seen the office yet, but suspect I may need some wider lenses. I just don't have $500, $1000, $1500 to drop for this.

Do you guys have recommendations on any legacy lenses/wide/zoom that are good for shooting interiors? Obviously, they don't need to be fast glass. When I had Canon, I had the Canon 10-22mm when capturing shots around my sister's school. I primarily work with primes for portraits, but liked the zoom aspect for the wide angles.

Do you have any recommendations for the Sony A7?

I currently have:

Sony A7

Sony FE 85mm 1.8

Sony FE 50mm 1.8

Tokina 80-200mm 2.8 (OM Mount)

Olympus 135mm 2.8

Olympus 135mm 3.5

Minolta Rokkor 50mm 1.4
Click to expand...
Well, if your interiors do not move too fast, you can use pretty much any lens (such as a cheap fifty stopped down) and stitch mosaics with a software such as PTGui.
 
CELLINGTON said:
I would be capturing the office space and separate offices for them to feature on their website for potential businesses to lease. So these shots would partially carry the design of the website as well as galleries to sell the space.

There isn't really a specific need to make the spaces look much bigger than they are. It isn't really a million dollar home sale for a realtor so I don't need to exaggerate. I just want to make sure I am prepared to get a good amount.

My friend told me 1500sqft, but I don't think I got clarity on whether that is for the entire suite or per office in the entire suite.

Honestly, if the lens couldn't cover an entire room in one shot, there shouldn't be an issue get a shot of one side of the room and a shot of the other side. I think the 24 or 28mm lenses would be a good start for me as I don't have the luxury of a big budget.
Click to expand...
Well, I'm less certain now.

Is this e--m--p--t--y office space or chock full 'o cubicles? Very different problems; one would be photographing stuff, the other architecture. Ultrawide can be nice for architecture, but stuff tends to look distorted in ultrawide... I know that sounds backward, but it is how I see it.

I don't think you would be far wrong with a good 24mm and bringing a tripod that you could easily do rotate-and-stitch pans with (i.e., pivot around the zero parallax point). In fact, the built-in pan stitching on the Sonys is quite good as long as you keep parallax error minimal and don't need raws. (Yes, the pan modes work fine with manual lenses on Sonys, although they are noisy making all those exposures. Consider the HDR modes too -- good for handling scenes with a dark office and bright window views.)
 
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A safe bet initially would be a very good zoom so that you will acquire enough experience before investing big. A good zoom that may fit your bill is Nikon AIS 25-50mm f/4. F/4 may be small, but this lens is a very solid performer and has been a sleeper for many years. Moreover, it is usually sold for $200USD or cheaper. This 25-50 is the precursor of a series of Nikon wonderful wide zooms such as 20-35/2.8, 17-35/2.8, etc.

CK
 
I'll second that it's an excellent lens. A bit large, but great IQ and minimal distortion. Does have a bit of mustache at 25mm though.
Ching-Kuang Shene said:
A safe bet initially would be a very good zoom so that you will acquire enough experience before investing big. A good zoom that may fit your bill is Nikon AIS 25-50mm f/4. F/4 may be small, but this lens is a very solid performer and has been a sleeper for many years. Moreover, it is usually sold for $200USD or cheaper. This 25-50 is the precursor of a series of Nikon wonderful wide zooms such as 20-35/2.8, 17-35/2.8, etc.

CK
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CELLINGTON said:
Hey guys! I am currently in need of a wide angle lens for my A7 for a shoot coming up. A friend of mine is opening an office suite in March they intend to rent out to small businesses. He asked me to do some shots around the office. Now I have not seen the office yet, but suspect I may need some wider lenses. I just don't have $500, $1000, $1500 to drop for this.

Do you guys have recommendations on any legacy lenses/wide/zoom that are good for shooting interiors? Obviously, they don't need to be fast glass. When I had Canon, I had the Canon 10-22mm when capturing shots around my sister's school. I primarily work with primes for portraits, but liked the zoom aspect for the wide angles.

Do you have any recommendations for the Sony A7?

I currently have:

Sony A7

Sony FE 85mm 1.8

Sony FE 50mm 1.8

Tokina 80-200mm 2.8 (OM Mount)

Olympus 135mm 2.8

Olympus 135mm 3.5

Minolta Rokkor 50mm 1.4
Click to expand...
2 UWA lenses I like are my Konica AR 21/4 and my Nikkor AI 18/4, they are usually under $300.

The FD 17/4 isn't as good, though the nFD 20 is better from what I've heard.

SMC Pentax M 20/4

A nice thread on this range http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1304315/0

If you can swing a Contax/Zeiss 21mm, they're all well known to be very good, with the Loxia arguably the best, but you're looking at $1000 or more.
 
I was impressed with a $90 Tokina 20-35 F3.5-4.5 II. I returned it because the electronics didn't work.

The Minolta AF 24 F2.8 and 28 F2.8 are decent lenses.
 
If he needs something wider, a good alternative is the Rokinon 12mm for APS-C and just shoot in APS-C mode. I doubt he needs the full resolution for the web.
 
CELLINGTON said:
petrochemist said:
Mathieu18 said:
Resist the urge to go too wide. Grab a Canon FD 24/2.8 for less than $100 and you should be fine.

--
----------------------------------------------
MattParvin.com
The future is actuarial, history is forensic.
Click to expand...
Most of the big makes had a 24mm and none of them where terrible. Lenses wider than this tend to get very expensive (in part because they're wanted for crop cameras).

You can probably get an OM 24mm well within your budget then you've already got the adapter...

If you find you need a bit more than the 24mm FOV you should be able to stitch images together for that little extra.
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Thank you. I'll look into the 20mm, 24mm range of primes to keep it simple for myself. Those will be better than what I have now and this isn't a high paying job that will cover some expensive wide zoom anyway.
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Olympus OM 21 3.5 MC might be a little above budget, but offers a lot for its price.

A good sample of the Minolta AF 24-85 can give you a quite decent 24mm and is very cheap. The problem is that it has a lot of sample variation and you'd have to try about 4 to be sure of getting a really good one.

Olympus OM 24 2.8 MC is a good lens for the price and is tiny. Make sure it is the MC model. Other models have no MC on the front ring: earlier ones have G.Zuiko or similar, later ones have Zuiko alone, are in fact multicoated, but have a slightly simplified optiucal scheme.

The Canon FD 20-35 (probably above budget) was quite quite sharp, but I hated its colors (a matter of taste).

A good sample of the Vivitar/Tokina 17 3.5 can be a bargain. Vivitar branded samples seem to do better.
 
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Rol Lei Nut said:
A good sample of the Minolta AF 24-85 can give you a quite decent 24mm and is very cheap. The problem is that it has a lot of sample variation and you'd have to try about 4 to be sure of getting a really good one.
Click to expand...
24-85's can be found very inexpensively. From the several I've owned there wasn't much variation at the wide end.
 
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