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 am a big fan of spacing prime lenses "1 stop" apart in terms of focal length. Like 24, 50, 100, 200, etc. I read this in an old book by John Shaw, more than 20 years ago. It makes a lot of sense. Then you adjust to personal taste or requirements, fill in blanks at "1/2 stop" apart.

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)

Yes, wide angle zooms are great for landscapes, as they offer flexibility that is sometimes needed. Low light, use of tripod is recommended anyway for landscapes.

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.

Fantastic lens.

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.

Fantastic lens too. I don't do video, but the AF is silent as far as I can tell.

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?

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?

I don't have this lens, but photos I have seen from it are far from being soft. don't fret and try one. Don't worry too much about other's opinions of "soft". Trust what you see.

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

For astro, the important thing is the light gathering ability of the lens, not so much the focal length. The X100V is a fantastic camera that is suitable for a lot of applications.

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