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

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)

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)

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.

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?

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?

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

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

Astro has different needs than standard landscape. You really want to avoid lenses with lots of a particular flaw called “comma” which renders stars as eye-shaped rather than round. Also, bight aperture (generally want faster than f/2.8) is very useful to allow lower ISO (less noise) or faster shutter (less blur). Finally, many people eithe go ultrawide like 12 mm for whole sky.

So…the 16 has a lot of comma and is a bit narrow for astro, but great for landscape. 14 is borderline too slow for astro and I don’t know about comma—I don’t have it, but it has a great reputation for landscape…but wider than you want. For astro, a great inexpensive choice is the Samyang 12/2, but it’s much wider than you want, is manual, and its coatings aren’t as good as Fujifilm’s in my opinion (more flare).

No easy choice. Sorry I can’t help more.

I personally love the x100v, my favorite camera of all time. For street not too wide, not to long really perfect, landscape really nice focal length, astro I do not shoot.

When I travel if I want wider I love the 16mm f2.8 wr nice and small and great images

Travel I have the Fuji x100v around my neck for street

In my bag, the Fuji xt20 with the 50mm f2 attached and the 16mm f2.8. all I need and everything is captured. I use a hand strap for the xt 20

Went to Italy 2019 and took only at that time the x100f, misses maybe 6 shots out of 3500.

How liberating and fun not to have to think about equipment at all

You may want to just go with the x100v for awhile and as you do you will find you do not need anything else.

I have my link below many shots with the x100f and x100v

Best of luck

The Samyang 12mm f/2.0 is a popular and affordable option for astro photography. You can buy that lens for just astro, and another one (less wide) for street.

It's a small and light lens. Manual focus, but for astro you will anyways find AF to be useless.

You can certainly use narrower focal lengths for astro, but that will reduce your maximum possible shuttertime before you get blurry stars thus they're less popular.

I'd suggest either renting or getting the 18 f/1.4 or the 14 f/2.8 from a shop that accepts returns.

I am in the same boat lately. The only reason I haven't decided yet us that I don't mind waiting for the rumored 13mm 1.4 from Viltrox and 16mm 1.4 from Sigma to see how they perform.

I also want to cover as many genres as possible with one lens (astro, architecture, landscape). I am aware it doesn't work like this but since I am not a pro it is fine.

If astro was out of the question I would go with the 10-24. Astro is also the same reason that I hesitate to go for 14mm 2.8 so I am looking for a fast-wide combo hence why I wait for the 2 lenses I mentioned at top. I have tried Samyang 12mm but I didn't like it.

If you cannot wait I think the solution that would work well would be 16mm 1.4 despite having coma wide open.

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)

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)

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.

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?

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?

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

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

You might want to also consider the X100V with the WCL converter - 19mm, f/2, sharp across frame and still very compact. Unscrew it and your back to the great all-purpose 23mm. There’s also the wide end of the 16-55 - as sharp as the 16 f/1.4 for landscapes (and MUCH sharper than the 10-24 in the corners), still sharp across the frame wide open at f/2.8, great for low light interior shooting.

Also, you can shoot very wide with just the X100V if you stitch a bunch of images together - very easy and very high resolution.

X100V pano, handheld

It's not a great choice for astro though, terrible coma wide open...

X100V for astro. It "works" , but bad coma in the corners

Based on what you wrote, I’d actually get the 16 2.8 to test the waters.

24mm is about as wide as you can go before you start seeing forced perspective distortion.

I like the ability to do this, so prefer a 20/21mm equivalent lens, went with the 14.

nemendes wrote:

jjz2 wrote:

Based on what you wrote, I’d actually get the 16 2.8 to test the waters.

24mm is about as wide as you can go before you start seeing forced perspective distortion.

I like the ability to do this, so prefer a 20/21mm equivalent lens, went with the 14.

As you said, distortion was my consideration not to have wider than 16mm. f2.8 is good option but while its big brother f1.4 is standing right there, hard to choose it a little :))

The 16 1.4 is definitely the better lens...but I'm not sure it will still be what you need for Astro due to coma. It's more of a professional event lens, than astro-tuned.

Maybe get both the 16 2.8 and 12 f2 for astro.

The 16 2.8 will be nice for landscape and wide street, while being WR..

The 12mm f2 is Cheap and one of top astro lenses.

You can get both for half the price of the 1.4.

I usually recommend lenses by what user is trying to accomplish than what might be the better overall lens. So yeah, the 16 1.4 by most accounts is the better lens and one of Fuji’s best, but is it going to accomplish your goals?

CeeDave wrote:

Astro has different needs than standard landscape. You really want to avoid lenses with lots of a particular flaw called “comma” which renders stars as eye-shaped rather than round. Also, bight aperture (generally want faster than f/2.8) is very useful to allow lower ISO (less noise) or faster shutter (less blur). Finally, many people eithe go ultrawide like 12 mm for whole sky.

So…the 16 has a lot of comma and is a bit narrow for astro, but great for landscape. 14 is borderline too slow for astro and I don’t know about comma—I don’t have it, but it has a great reputation for landscape…but wider than you want. For astro, a great inexpensive choice is the Samyang 12/2, but it’s much wider than you want, is manual, and its coatings aren’t as good as Fujifilm’s in my opinion (more flare).

No easy choice. Sorry I can’t help more.

If you'll forgive me, the flaw you're referring to is "coma" and it's most definitely something to avoid with astrophotography. Also, the OP mentioned 16mm as a target FL... I'd agree that it would likely be a bit too long for wide field astro work (star landscapes... otherwise known as starscapes). Something more in the 12-14mm range would be better. Some of the best choices in that range include the Zeiss 12mm and Samyang 12mm lenses. Also, if the budget can handle it, the 8-16 can do some pretty amazing astro work.. but it's also a very pricey lens.

nemendes wrote:

CeeDave wrote:

Astro has different needs than standard landscape. You really want to avoid lenses with lots of a particular flaw called “comma” which renders stars as eye-shaped rather than round. Also, bight aperture (generally want faster than f/2.8) is very useful to allow lower ISO (less noise) or faster shutter (less blur). Finally, many people eithe go ultrawide like 12 mm for whole sky.

So…the 16 has a lot of comma and is a bit narrow for astro, but great for landscape. 14 is borderline too slow for astro and I don’t know about comma—I don’t have it, but it has a great reputation for landscape…but wider than you want. For astro, a great inexpensive choice is the Samyang 12/2, but it’s much wider than you want, is manual, and its coatings aren’t as good as Fujifilm’s in my opinion (more flare).

No easy choice. Sorry I can’t help more.

Thanks for opinions. In fact i didnt take any serious landscape, astro or architecture photos before so maybe wider than 16mm is more useful for these purposes. But i just don't think that this wide lens will be my first or second choice, if i cant use it for street photography too. Thats why i am a little bit cold to lenses wider than 16mm.

Get the 28 f2.0 or the 28 f2.0 WCL-X100B II conversion lens for the X-100V.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/Fujinon%20Xf%2028%20f2/

nemendes wrote:

...I have 35mm, 56mm, 90mm, 50-140. Recently i bought x100v to try wider focal length for myself.

Looks like you are in good shape for portraits and for most street photography.

For astro I like our Rokinon 12mm f/2.

For street photography I prefer 23mm to 35mm focal lengths.  ( I don't get right into people's faces, so I actually use my 18-55mm to give me flexibility for street.)  I would prefer to take my 16-80 for street, but it is too big and obvious if I need to be more discreet.

If I am doing more urban general photography than people, I use mostly my 16-80mm with my 10-24mm in a small messenger bag just in case I need wider than 16mm.  I love the exaggerated perspective that a wide angle (or fisheye) lens gives when shot with the camera aimed way other than just horizontal.  Crazy tilts with buildings are fun for me.

For landscape and general photography I take my 10-24mm, 16-80mm and 70-300mm (w/1.4 teleconverter) with my fisheye tucked in a corner of the bag.  If I travel light I drop the 70-300mm.

I find that I seldom go wider than 16mm, but for those times that I need wider my 10-24mm fills the bill as I have many choices with one lens in my bag.

You might consider just adding the 16mm f/2.8 as a starter for expansion or perhaps the 10-24mm.

There is a bigger difference in effect between focal lengths at the wider end of the spectrum as against the telephoto end.  If 16mm was as wide as I could go I could live with it and do panoramas if wider was needed.  18mm just isn't wide enough for my style of landscape and general photography.

Tim van der Leeuw wrote:

The Samyang 12mm f/2.0 is a popular and affordable option for astro photography. You can buy that lens for just astro, and another one (less wide) for street.

It's a small and light lens. Manual focus, but for astro you will anyways find AF to be useless.

You can certainly use narrower focal lengths for astro, but that will reduce your maximum possible shuttertime before you get blurry stars thus they're less popular.

I find the Samyang 12mm F2.0 lens very good for regular photography. If carefully focused it delivers really good results when images are drastically cropped.

To the OP; Have you thought about the Wide angle add-on lens for the X100?

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1311233-REG/fujifilm_16534716_wcl_x100_ii_wide_conversion.html

This gets you the field of view of a 18mm lens for Fuji (28mm FF equiv), and might be more affordable than a Fuji 18mm lens.  Nice thing about this is the add on lens is recognized as such whenever you mount it and this goes into the EXIF.

The existing 23mm X100v lens is about 35mm FF equivalent.

I don't own a X100 but I can recommend the Samyang 12mm.  Mine works great.