Wide Angle Lens - opinions please

Photearoa wrote:

Banderras wrote:

Photearoa wrote:

Absolutely.. that is on my wish list! Prioritising the wide angle as I have a trip coming up and really want to have a go at the remote New Zealand skies!

I am not into Astro, but what I learned about it online, it takes practice and dedication and a set of accessories to get one of those nice pictures floating the net. So a dedicated, manual focus, comparatively less expensive lens is a good solution, as it’s a special use kind of.

For example, as far as I understand, you would need different band pass infrared filters to get the gas nebulas. I suppose you will need a tripod too, if not tracking mount. With this in mind AF is not really required, besides it is not that accurate for night sky shots, I always check manually and refocus anyway. I ask others who are into Astro to correct me if I’m wrong, because I’m clueless about this really.

Or do you mean by skies the dramatic cloud skies during daytime? Really for all other uses I would go for the 10-24 and AF, I am also in the uwa still need to focus camp, coming from experience with 12mm touit and canon 17-40.

I think this is sound advice for me - I want to ‘have a go’ and don’t have expectations of being able to produce the amazing photos that get bandied around.. hence why I was thinking about which lens would allow me to dabble with Astro (if indeed that’s even possible lol) but have a lens that I’ll still use elsewhere.

I have attempted before with the wrong lens so I’m principle know the set up steps.. tripod etc sounds more and more like the 12mm is the best option and then can add on the 10-24 if I want a more usable WA for landscapes etc.

Just to add another little tidbit about landscapes. As others mentioned, some lenses have high focusing plane curvature. This means that for technical image quality in landscapes you need to check focus in multiple parts of the image to ensure everything you want is in focus. In this case AF does not do much either. Then comes focus stacking or tilt-shift lenses and other shenanigans for obsessed people like me.

But don't dismiss other use cases just yet. I had some really cool shoulder portraits and top-down perspective portraits with a touit 12mm, which people really liked. MF would be slowing you down in this case, but not by much once you get used to it. And then once you have tried it, you can move on to more expensive lenses with confidence, or try something different.