Suggestions for wide angle lens (for landscape/astro/street)

nemendes wrote:

Hi Everyone!

I didn't use wide angle lenses before (i tried few times but not was for me). I have 35mm, 56mm, 90mm, 50-140. Recently i bought x100v to try wider focal length for myself. It is a quite good machine, sharpness, min focus distance and portability are great. I used it for street, indoor events and a little landscapes, architectures too. I realized that 23mm (35mm for FF) focal length is kind a neither wide nor tele for me. So, i wanna buy wider lens for mostly landscape, astro, architecture and street photography. Let me share my knowledge about wide lenses that i observed; (by the way i have X-T4)

I totally agree with all your lens analysis. Having this in mind I'd like to do a relation between type of photo with a kind of lens. This is not saying that a certain type of photo implying a certain type of lens. DO NOT. You can use any lens for any type of photo.

XF 10-24mm : Great lens for landscape, sharp and solid. I am not sure that i will need focal length below 14-16mm because i didn't use any wide lens before and its too wide :). f4 worries me about low light situation, because i like shooting at night but i have other lenses for that situation too (as 35mm and 56mm)

Very versatile. BEST for Landscape, Cityscape, Architecture, Interiors, Real Estate. It has a very efficient OIS, estimated around 3 to 2.5 Stops. For low light and static subjects F4+OIS is more than OK, because you can handle it with very low speed shutter, but can not freeze a motion subject. Maybe not so good for events, but good enough for posing photos.

XF 14mm: I heard that its a great, sharp lens but i think its too wide for me for a prime. I would like to hear your opinions as well.

IMHO the best for Architecture, Landscape, Cityscape. Totally optical corrected. It is tack sharp wide open frame to frame. If you crop just 15% you have the same Field of View (FoV) of the 16mm. Could be hand holder around 1/25sec. Valid the same observations about low light as XF 10-24.

XF 16mm f1.4: I was close to this lens for my choice. Because of hearing many positive opinions about it, i would like to try it. I was almost sure till fujifilm announced new xf18mm f1.4 16mm has amazing min focus distance, sharpness but i heard that autofocus is noisy, especially for video.

XF 18mm f1.4: This lens seems to be perfect for me, but it is the most expensive one between options that i observed. Money is not an issue, but i am a little worried that what happens if i buy it and not like using wide lens or wish to buy wider one?

Both (16F1.4 and 18F1.4) Best for group portraits, events, low light. At F1.4 could raise the shutter speed to freeze the subject motion blur. IMHO for street and documentary 18mm is a little bit more adequate than 16mm. The choice between each one is subjective, it is more about your FL preference.

XF 18mm f2: I would like to try that one; cheaper, lighter and i could understand easily that wider than 23mm is suitable for me or not. But people told that this lens is soft and not sharp, i am not a pixel peeper guy but i really dont like softness or ghosting. Of course i can manage if a little, but i heard that this lens has a quite softness. Your opinion?

You're right. It is soft at edges, but sharp enough at center. It is inadequate for Architecture, Landscape and Cityscape, but adequate for Street, Documentary, Still Life, Travel, All-Around, Walk-Around.

X100V: I have that machine for trying wide angle. Maybe you could tell me that i dont need wider one. I will not take every week landscape photos or astro, maybe architecture few but i mostly do street and portrait photography. So it would be great if i could use my wide lens for these purposes too. For example could tell me that how much difference between 16mm, 18mm and 23mm? I know there is quite difference but for landscape or astro how much important it is? I didn't take landscape, astro, architecture photos for a purpose, so i really dont have any idea

To avoid perspective distortion in portraits, the closest distance to the subject is around 1.50m. So follows the field of view of the frame for each focal length:

16mm @ 1,50m - FoV ............ 2,22m x 1,46m - Best for: Group Portrait, Landscape, Architecture, Interior

18mm @ 1,50m - FoV ............ 1,97m x 1,30m - Best for: Group Portrait, Street, Travel and Documentary

23mm @ 1,50m - FoV ............ 1,54m x 1,02m - Best for: Environmental Portrait, Street, Travel and Documentary

If you share your opinions, i will be appreciate. Thanks in advance.

My 2 cents contribution.