14mm lens (canon, nikon, take yer pick)

[Mike W]

Hi everyone.

I just found out there are decent lenses beyond 20mm that aren't fish-eyed. And I'm curious about these since, for some reason, I always find myself with my back up against a wall. :-)

Does anyone have any experience with either the Canon or Nikon 14mm? Are they sharp? any traces of barrel distortions?

If anyone can upload samples or 100% crops, that would be great.

thanks

Mike

[juicy]

Hi!

My experiences with EF 14mm mk1 are only from one sample (w 1Ds), thus someone else may have a strongly different opinion. Hopefully the mk2 is significantly better.
The edges were unusable for my intended use (interiors) even heavily stopped down and after cropping the frame so that the quality was ok the FOV was about the same as in my 17-40 @ 17mm (with less distorsion though). The edges were very soft and and had a lot of color distorsion (the latter was easily corrected in ACR). The geometric distorsion was not bad with only some barrel-type distorsion.
The lens may be better suited for shooting people in low light etc when ultimate IQ may not be the most important aspect but you need the FOV. I would much rather see a f5.6 lens with excellent sharpness  to the edges than a f2.8 with mushy edges. Anyway I have not tested the mk2 yet but certainly will.
Sorry I can't post any samples. Anyway I suggest that you take your own camera and tripod to your favourite camera-store and test the lenses yourself, thats the most accurate way of seeing if the quality-price-ratio fits you.
I have no exp with Sigma 12-24 or Nikon.

Cheers,
J

[mahleu]

Haven't used the 14mm but the 17-40L is a lovely lense (and suprisingly cheap).

[Mike W]

Well, thanks for replying.

I will test the 14mm in due time, but in the meantime the 17-40mm lens you guys pointed out is indeed bloody cheap (600+ on amazon).

Is this a recent version of the lens or are there more current models than the one you own?
I remember Micheal doing a side by side comparison....here ->
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/...non-17-40.shtml

but then again, maybe 20mm would suffice. Any thoughts the 20mm? (canon or nikon)

[Ken Bennett]

You might try the Sigma 12-24mm zoom. Yes, I know, it's a Sigma, but my copy is way better than any of the Canon lenses that I have owned or borrowed, including the 14mm (first edition), the 17-35, 16-35 mark II, 20/2.8. the 24 tilt-shift, and the 24-70. The Sigma covers full-frame, though I've only used it on the 1.3x 1-D series bodies, so I haven't really seen the corners. But it has significantly less distortion and CA than the Canon lenses.

This is a lens that's best at f/16 or so. That's fine for me, since it's my architecture lens, but it might not be so good for action photography.

[Mike W]

I shoot landscape at f/16 unless some external factor gets in the way.

Could you perhaps share a sample so we could pixel-peep it a bit?

thanks a bunch.

Mike

This is a lens that's best at f/16 or so. That's fine for me, since it's my architecture lens, but it might not be so good for action photography.
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[Ken Bennett]

I shoot landscape at f/16 unless some external factor gets in the way.

Could you perhaps share a sample so we could pixel-peep it a bit?

thanks a bunch.

Mike
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Hi, Mike,

I'd be happy to. I'm not sure if I can upload a full-res image here, but I'm going to try. This is an interior, shot with a 1-D Mark II at ISO 100, Sigma 12-24 lens at 12mm, 1/8 sec at f/14. It was processed from the original RAW file using Adobe Camera Raw, with no sharpening and no C.A. adjustments at all. I did a little capture sharpen in Photoshop.

It shows a little barrel distortion, but that's easily corrected in software. The corners are very sharp, and what amazes me the most is the lack of color fringing on the hand rails in front of the window at left. My 16-35/2.8L II lens has huge magenta/green color fringing in this same situation. I had to save it as a medium quality jpeg to get it to upload.

BTW, lots of people complain about "brick wall tests" -- testing lens sharpness using a brick wall. But in my job, I have to shoot lots of brick walls, and I like the corners to be sharp, too.

Hope this works, we'll see.

Cheers,

Ken[attachment=3361:attachment]

[marcwilson]

Yes the sigma 12-24 is much liked by interior / exterior photographers on full frame dslr's for its lack of distortion.
Also it is generally seen ( I believe ) as although perhaps not as pin sharp as other super wides in the centre to be even across the frame.

note that i have not myself tested it against a new canon or nikon at 14mm!

check out the website tests of it at 16-9.net

All that said all wide lenses I have used (sigma 12-24 and canon 17-40 and original canon 16-35) on dslrs compared to say very wide lf lenses any distortion and edge softness is much more pronouced so depending on what you have seen before you may still be dissapointed with the results...watch out for any straight structures near the edges of your shots and get that camera level to start with!
I find with these lenses a grid screen and on camera spirit level to be my most usefull accessory!

Marc

[Mike W]

@Ken

Thank you for uploading that sample, it was very usefull.

Personally, I'm not convinced by the IQ. Indeed the color fringe is very subtle to non-existant.
But I find the overall sharpness to be a bit low. Did you use a tripod to shoot this image? What was the shutter-speed? (edit-> you allready stated 1/8 of a sec, sorry)

I'm starting to think maybe I need a very sharp 24mm (or 20mm, if the IQ is comparable) and get a very wide zoom for the I'm-up-against-a-wall-again situations. I'm always looking for the all-round tool, but sadly that is a pipe-dream most of the time.

thanks

Mike

[Ken Bennett]

Mike,

It was on a tripod, but I didn't use mirror lock up. (Couldn't -- I was trying to frame the kid walking through the frame.) As for sharpness, this one has had a touch of capture sharpen in Photoshop, just enough to overcome the softness of the Canon CMOS chip, but it hasn't been sharpened for output. In print, images from this lens hold up very well. Of course, YMMV.

--Ken