Wide Angle Lens - opinions please

jpig wrote:

Emile15 wrote:

I would still consider a manual lens. Remember, everything further away than a meter or so will be sharp, so focussing (manual or auto) doesn’t really come into it. I recently bought the Laowa 9mm 8f/2.8 and am very pleased with it. The real learning curve with this lens is deciding when it can be used to good effect and focussing at very short distances, say 15cm.

Yeah, people keep saying that, but ultra wide angles lenses are for getting up close, and when you do that, depth of field becomes an issue, and you will need to focus. Now if you just want to point it at a distant scene and snap away, fine, set it to f/8, focus to somewhere near infinity, and forget it. But that's not how I use an ultra wide angle. I have the Rokinon 12mm, and I like it a lot, especially for the price, but in my usage, focusing is necessary.

These were shot with the Rokinon 12mm at f/8 or f/11 (can't remember which) and not even particularly up close, but you can see that not everything is in focus. In both cases focus was set on the purple flower (lupine) closest to the center.

I have (and very much like) the Rokinon 12/2, and I agree with you that “infinity (or whatever) and f/8 (or whatever) *is not good practice*. I always use the max magnified focus (usually without any peaking). Sometimes it is just a tiny nudge (there’s not a lot of focus throw), but it really does matter. This is of course even more important with longer manual focus lenses like the stellar Rokinon 135/2, but it still improves images even at 12 mm and f/8.

I focus on my main subject at f/2 in the magnified view, and then stop down to my target aperture and look around the scene — still in magnified view — to make sure I’ve got the components of the scene I want in acceptable focus. Then I pop back out of magnified view and finalize framing and exposure (using exposure compensation, usually with auto ISO).

If I don’t need the very wide view (and I haven’t shot astro much), then the 16/1.4 is sharper (especially at the edges), renders highlights and sun stars better, and is easier to use. The 16/1.4 is of course much bigger and more expensive (and significantly narrower in field of view).

The Rokinon 8/2.8, 12/2, and 135/2 are very good to excellent optically (in my opinion, the 135 is best, followed by the 8 and then the 12, but the 8 mm fisheye is not as useful as the 12 for me) — and they are *incredible* bargains.

Too bad Fujifilm don’t offer any primes that compete with these lenses.