Wide Angle Lens - opinions please

Photearoa wrote:

It is not CA (chromatic aberration) that you are referring to. The XF 16mm has sagittal astigmatism at f/1.4 and still at f/2 which makes bright stars and human lights look like small segments of a circle. It also has some fringing (blue or red) around the brightest stars wide open.

The Samyang has different characteristics, but the stars tend to be radially stretched near the edges (looks more like coma) with color fringes on them and chromatic aberration. I actually like my XF 16mm F1.4, better star color and size (brightness) impression, only it is not as wide. My Samyang copy is a hell to focus, not flat field, I often have to choose between horizon sharp or stars.

So based on your own experience would you say the 16mm would be a good choice then? Enough for a beginner at Astro and good uses elsewhere.. even with the trade off on the width?

In my experience both lenses suffer from issues. I find the issues more acceptable with my 16mm.

Of course, for a first lens I would still go with the 12mm F2, because of the price. This is exactly what I did. It is just that for landscapes I was disappointed by the 12mm. Always near the edges it remains a bit mushy, even stopped down, and focus tools are of little help - looks good on the screen for a wide range of focus positions but the result revealed I still did not nail it. It has similar characteristics as my XF 18-135mm bought at the same time, reasonable, but left me wanting better. Since the 16mm I rarely bring the 12mm, but I found the former too narrow after using the 12!

Perhaps other copies of the 12mm are better than mine, but you cannot know what you are going to get. In any case, buy from a store you can easily return it to.

You can see web sized astro examples of both here, I could not be bothered to brush up the artifacts https://www.flickr.com/photos/lightningwizard/albums/72157666825442766