looking for a wide angle in the range of 18 to 20 mm

nicolas claris · Apr 5, 2009

Hi folks
For my yacht interior photography, I'm in search of a wide angle lens for my IDs3.
In the range of 18 to 20 mm.
I have the Canon 14mm II but I find it sometimes too wide (I hate cropping).
I also Have the Canon 24-70, a brilliant lens but some time not wide enough…

The Canon TS-E 17mm f / 4L is not on the market afaik, and I don't think I really need the tilt and shift.

I can stich images, but it is too much time consumming.

I need crisp images, no vignetting, sharp corners, AF is a plus but not absolutely needed.

So what would you recommend?

Michael Fontana · Apr 5, 2009

Bonsoir Nicolas

a zoom for interiors, that's great!
you know that I have the Nikon 14 - 24 and like and use it very much; excellent corner-sharpness, barely no CA, and practically no distortions in your required focal lenghts.... I think the examples were in Bart's wide-angle-thread.

As for the rest you could wait the Zeiss 21 mm in the ZE-mount (canon-version) - or maybe the Zeiss 18?

Daniel Buck · Apr 5, 2009

The Zeiss and Olympus 18mm lenses seem to be pretty darn good! If you don't mind manual focusing and stop-down metering. I've used the 18mm Zeiss (a friend's) and it's quite sharp even in the corners when stopped down on a 1Ds2

Asher Kelman · Apr 6, 2009

Nicolas,

I have a special 18mm Distagon. It will work with the 1DsIII. Mine is f2.0. It can't be used with the 5D without shaving the mirror which I have been reluctant to do.

Asher

nicolas claris · Apr 6, 2009

Bonjour Daniel and Asher (by order of appearance!)
For the "normal" shots I use to shoot at ƒ8 to 11… unless I want special focusing effect, I need to have the image sharp from FG to BG.

Quite dificult to find that lens new on the web…
here: http://www.zeiss.com/c12567a8003b58b9/Contents-Frame/8e8ae439a3fd6101c125711b005a77c4 I found the Distagon T* 3,5/18 , I don't think they have a Canon mount for it…

But cannot find any ƒ2…

nicolas claris · Apr 6, 2009

Michael Fontana said:
Bonsoir Nicolas

a zoom for interiors, that's great!
you know that I have the Nikon 14 - 24 and like and use it very much; excellent corner-sharpness, barely no CA, and practically no distortions in your required focal lenghts.... I think the examples were in Bart's wide-angle-thread.

As for the rest you could wait the Zeiss 21 mm in the ZE-mount (canon-version) - or maybe the Zeiss 18?

Bonjour Michael
thanks for your fast reply!
Yes the Nikon can be an option. How finally did you get the Canon mount?
I don't think I can wait for the Zeiss next important shoot is in 2 weeks…

Daniel Buck · Apr 6, 2009

Nicolas Claris said:
Bonjour Daniel and Asher (by order of appearance!)
For the "normal" shots I use to shoot at ƒ8 to 11… unless I want special focusing effect, I need to have the image sharp from FG to BG.

Quite dificult to find that lens new on the web…
here: http://www.zeiss.com/c12567a8003b58b9/Contents-Frame/8e8ae439a3fd6101c125711b005a77c4 I found the Distagon T* 3,5/18 , I don't think they have a Canon mount for it…

But cannot find any ƒ2…

you can use one of the Zeiss Distagon's in a Contax Mount (not sure how many other mounts they were offered in? Contax is the only one as far as I know?) The Contax-to-EOS adapter rings are fairly popular, I've been using Contax lenses on my EOS cameras for about 5+ years now

I'm not sure how the newer 18mm is (that looks like a newer one in the photo there?) but the older one seems to be pretty good, at lest from what I've seen. I think the older one was an f4? (as well as whatever it is that Asher has, f2?)

Asher Kelman · Apr 6, 2009

Nicolas,

I have it with a Cameraquest Adapter 18mm f2.0, perfect for any 1D series camera. It's a wonderful lens but I'd not want someone to buy it from me in a rush, LOL! Besides, how would one deal with customs and VAT!

Asher

Correction: The 18mm Distagon is f4.0, not 2.0. That was an error! My 28mm is 2.0 and since they both hit the mirror on my 5D and 5DII, I have not used them for some time and hence the error! They work fine with any 1D series camera. I used them regularly with the 1DII.

nicolas claris · Apr 6, 2009

Asher Kelman said:
Nicolas,

I have it with a Cameraquest Adapter 18mm f2.0, perfect for any 1D series camera. It's a wonderful lens but I'd not want someone to buy it from me in a rush, LOL! Besides, how would one deal with customs and VAT!

Asher

There is no VATon used items, only on new ones (from stores)… and customs are payed thu the carrier when it arrives…
More seriously can you point me to a store that could sell me these… (and also to check the price first!)

Michael Fontana · Apr 6, 2009

Nicolas

there has been the old aka, Contax mount, that you can convert to Canon with a Contax to EOS-adapter. I never heard about a f =2 version of it; nothing at the Zeiss database either.

Then, today they have the ZF mount for Nikon and the K-mount for Pentax; the ZE-mount for Canon is expected to be delivered somewhen this year.

If opting for that lens, I would wait that release, and borrow somewhere a wide for the next two weeks assignement.

Here some tests: 18 mm by Mark

Mark is the producer of the adapter for the N 14 -24 to EOS.
Look at his test of the 12-24 in the 21 mm-region as well.

Or see that test

Asher Kelman · Apr 6, 2009

Michael Fontana said:
Nicolas

there has been the old aka, Contax mount, that you can convert to Canon with a Contax to EOS-adapter. I never heard about a f =2 version of it; nothing at the Zeiss database either.

That's the lens I have, LOL! I paid approx $1200 for it and $175 for the Cameraquest adapter but I could look it up. No problem selling it. It's just a lot of money! I could make a deal for my friend. It's fine for the 1Ds or 1D series. For the 5D one has to shave the mirror. I haven't tried it with a 5DII.

Asher

Daniel Buck · Apr 6, 2009

KEH has 4 of the 18/f4 distagons right now

Michael Fontana · Apr 6, 2009

Well, Daniel,
the 18 mm is not regarded as the best distagon anyway.
I' m zeissy, but not on that one.

The 18 mm has been going through different designs:

"The 18mm Distagon is NOT rear focusing lens, so the rear element’s location is fixed at all times, thus clearance issues occur at focal distances - not just at infinity focus. While some say the 18mm will not work with the Canon 5D, others report the 18mm F4 Distagon does indeed work on a 5D. It may take some experimentation on your part to find the right mix of body, lens and adapter.

The AE version appears more likely to work than MM version because the older AE version has a different type of retaining ring on the rear element (see the picture to the right). The AE’s retaining ring is angled, thus allowing more room for the mirror to clear as it swings past the rear element. Whereas the MM version has a low profile ring and the rear element actually sticks out past the ring (the element is convex). In fact, the rear element on the MM version could be damaged (scratched) by a mirror strike. The image below if a 18mm F4 Distagon MM - clearly Contax changed the design."

from pebbleplace

Asher, you' re shure about a 18 mm f2? Do you have a photo of it?

Luminous landscape: new Distagon 18

Kathy Rappaport · Apr 6, 2009

16-35

Nicolas,

The favorite lens for the portrait shooters is the 16-35 2.8 - I have been using it a bit and am quite happy with it's sharpness over the 24-70.

Michael Fontana · Apr 6, 2009

Kathy

I tried that (vers 2) before going for the 14-24, a few monthes ago; the copy I had was only slightly better than my 17-40 - with a really bad corner sharpness - maybe ok for the portrait shooters - but not good for architecture shots as Nicolas does. I did a bit of research on the 16-35, and couldn't find anybody to claim it to be superior to the 14-24.

nicolas claris · Apr 6, 2009

Thanks Asher, Daniel and Michael

I'm following your discussions with the greatest interest!

Can I use live view of the 1Ds3 for focusing with the distagons?

Michael is the AF working with the Nikon 14-24?

nicolas claris · Apr 6, 2009

Kathy Rappaport said:
Nicolas,

The favorite lens for the portrait shooters is the 16-35 2.8 - I have been using it a bit and am quite happy with it's sharpness over the 24-70.

Bonjour Kathy
you may have got a pretty good one as all tests and reviews I've read do show that this Canon lens is not as good as it's competitors…
SOme years ago I did myself some comparisons with the Canon 17-40 (I was lucky and had a really good one) which was far better than the 18-35 (new generation)…
I am looking for an outstanding crisp lens… hence my original request for a prime, though I know Michael to be very very demanding with his lens, so I am now also considering the Nikon… see the comparison with the 16-35 here: http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/18mm_testb.html

Kind regards
PS also the main difference between portrait and interiors is that for interior we do more care for corners and need more DOF than portraitists…

Jack_Flesher · Apr 6, 2009

I am with you in wanting an 18mm focal length as I view it the idea wide focal for my needs. FWIW, a friend has tested the Sigma 12-24 AF zoom on his Canon 1Ds3 and reported it performed "remarkably well," though he did add, "just don't peer too long in the very corners at 100%!" I have not personally tested one myself yet, but plan to this week -- this lens is a zoom, about half the size of the Canon 16-35, and costs all of $699 -- which is pretty remarkable even if it is just so-so in the corners...

Asher Kelman · Apr 6, 2009

Jack_Flesher said:
I am with you in wanting an 18mm focal length as I view it the idea wide focal for my needs. FWIW, a friend has tested the Sigma 12-24 AF zoom on his Canon 1Ds3 and reported it performed "remarkably well," though he did add, "just don't peer too long in the very corners at 100%!" I have not personally tested one myself yet, but plan to this week -- this lens is a zoom, about half the size of the Canon 16-35, and costs all of $699 -- which is pretty remarkable even if it is just so-so in the corners...

Jack,

Nicolas, I believe has shot a major part of his portfolio with that very Sigma. There seems to be a lot of variation in experience and this may be how the elements are aligned. Nicolas, BTW, appears to have lucked out with one of the best examples of this Sigma ultrawide zoom. Go figure!

Asher

nicolas claris · Apr 6, 2009

Jack_Flesher said:
I am with you in wanting an 18mm focal length as I view it the idea wide focal for my needs. FWIW, a friend has tested the Sigma 12-24 AF zoom on his Canon 1Ds3 and reported it performed "remarkably well," though he did add, "just don't peer too long in the very corners at 100%!" I have not personally tested one myself yet, but plan to this week -- this lens is a zoom, about half the size of the Canon 16-35, and costs all of $699 -- which is pretty remarkable even if it is just so-so in the corners...

Hi Jack
thanks for the suggestion,but I owned (a good sample) of this lens and made some pretty good shots with it… but it's more a landscape lens than an architecture one… yes corners are soft…
Each time, before changing lens I make some comparisons (thanks to have a local brick and mortar shop here…), I compared successively:

16-35 (II) to 17-40 kept the 17-40
17-40 to Sigma 12-24 kept the Sigma
Sigma 12-24 to Canon 14 (II) kept the 14…

Now, I'll keep the Canon 14 for outdoor shots, it's a brilliant lens.

But sometimes too wide for interiors of yachts, need a crisp from corner to corner, stopped down at ƒ8 with no vignetting 18, 20 or 21 lens to fill the gap between the 14 and the 24-70 (a good one!)…

Jack_Flesher · Apr 6, 2009

Got it, makes total sense --- and be sure let me know what you decide on when you finally do get it figured out!

Bart_van_der_Wolf · Apr 7, 2009

Nicolas Claris said:
Now, I'll keep the Canon 14 for outdoor shots, it's a brilliant lens.

But sometimes too wide for interiors of yachts, need a crisp from corner to corner, stopped down at ƒ8 with no vignetting 18, 20 or 21 lens to fill the gap between the 14 and the 24-70 (a good one!)…

Hi Nicolas,

The TS-E 17mm specifications look very promising for the purpose, but it won't be available for a while (May 2009), and it's a manual focus lens. The horizontal FOV of the 14mm is approx. 104 degrees (which is borderline acceptable for corner distortion in interiors), the 17mm will have a HFOV of 93 degrees, which is a big difference, and it will have the benefit of tilt and shift and an impressive MTF curve (promising low contrast detail all the way up to the corners). The difference between 104 and 93 degrees at a shooting distance of 5 metres is a width of 12.82m versus 10.55m, and that's significantly less wide (some 18% less) and with a much more acceptable corner distortion. A 24mm at 5 metres focus distance has a HFOV width of 7.46m.

Bart

Asher Kelman · Apr 7, 2009

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:
Hi Nicolas,

The TS-E 17mm specifications look very promising for the purpose, but it won't be available for a while (May 2009), and it's a manual focus lens. The horizontal FOV of the 14mm is approx. 104 degrees (which is borderline acceptable for corner distortion in interiors), the 17mm will have a HFOV of 93 degrees, which is a big difference, and it will have the benefit of tilt and shift and an impressive MTF curve (promising low contrast detail all the way up to the corners). The difference between 104 and 93 degrees at a shooting distance of 5 metres is a width of 12.82m versus 10.55m, and that's significantly less wide (some 18% less) and with a much more acceptable corner distortion. A 24mm at 5 metres focus distance has a HFOV width of 7.46m.

Bart

Bart, what about the FOV with shift?

Asher

Michael Fontana · Apr 7, 2009

The key-point of any shift-lens - as a architecture lens - is distortions.
I've two of them, but they' re rarely in use, due to the difficult correction of distortions.

Karsten Schneeberger · Apr 7, 2009

Nicolas Claris said:
I'm in search of a wide angle lens for my IDs3.
In the range of 18 to 20 mm ... I need crisp images, no vignetting, sharp corners, AF is a plus but not absolutely needed. So what would you recommend?

Hi Nicolas,

I would recommend the Zeiss Distagon T* 2.8/21mm - it should be available in mid 2009.

I have had the Canon EF 2.8/20mm, but was never satisfied with this lens mounted on a full frame 5D... much to soft corners. I then tried the Olympus Zuiko 3.5/21mm with an OM-to-EF-adapter and finally bought the Canon EF 1.4/ 24mm L (old version 1). The Problem with the Olympus lens was the difficult to impossible TTL metering. I wanted to use the 21mm lens for QTVR single row panorama photography.

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/olympusom1n2/shared/zuiko/htmls/21mm.htm

Best Regards, Karsten

Bart_van_der_Wolf · Apr 7, 2009

Asher Kelman said:
Bart, what about the FOV with shift?

Hi Asher,

That's no problem. The stitch will be relatively simple, and one can achieve such a wide angle with a somewhat longer focal length. However, when one wants to have straight lines remaining straight in the output, there is only one projection method that allows to do that without compromises; a planar/rectilinear projection. The drawback of such a projection is that one is limited to a FOV of approx. 100-120 degrees. At 110 degrees or wider things at the edges start to look funky/stretched, and as Nicolas mentioned he doesn't feel to good about the stretching at 104 degrees already. So one has to limit the field of view, or use alternative projections.

Michael Fontana said:
The key-point of any shift-lens - as a architecture lens - is distortions.
I've two of them, but they' re rarely in use, due to the difficult correction of distortions.

I use my TS-E lenses very often, not as much for the shift capability, but mostly for the tilt capability which allows to influence the plane of focus. That capability is very important when shooting in confined spaces, like the interiors of a ship, or when shooting relatively wide open but with a need for DOF. The shift capability can in specific circumstances be replaced by good stitching software, which will then also handle the residual cushion/barrel shaped distortions (if any). Not shifting the lens also reduces the risk of unbalanced vignetting.

Dealing with distortion correction on shifted images requires preparation of the images (by adding blank space to the file to center the optical axis) or the use of a parallel offset parameter in the stitching software.

Bart

Michael Fontana · Apr 7, 2009

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:
Dealing with distortion correction on shifted images requires preparation of the images (by adding blank space to the file to center the optical axis) or the use of a parallel offset parameter in the stitching software.Bart

Bart I' ve read about it, but never managed to do it, also because I never remember the shift coordinates at home. Isn' t a normal stitch easier, then?

Nicolas doesn't wants stitching; I agree about the sense of a pretty wide - whithout further work involved - for some shots.

Bart_van_der_Wolf · Apr 7, 2009

Michael Fontana said:
Bart I' ve read about it, but never managed to do it, also because I never remember the shift coordinates at home. Isn' t a normal stitch easier, then?

As long as it's a parameter that can be automatically opimized in the stitcher, it's somewhat solvable. Trying to remember the shift amount will fail, I agree, but one can make a voice comment which gets saved with the file on the EOS-1 series. Things get a bit more complicated when anything else than 90 degree rotations and shifts are involved, so auto solving seems the best approach. I usually first lock the other parameters before optimizing the offsets, because they may mess up the total optimization on occasions. That's one of the reasons I usually restrict myself to tilts.

This all is caused of course by software that doesn't consider shifted images. Better Raw converter software would have facilities for decentered symmetrical corrections such as lateral Chromatic Aberrations and vignetting on arbitrarily shifted images.

Nicolas doesn't wants stitching; I agree about the sense of a pretty wide - whithout further work involved - for some shots.

I agree, stitching is not the goal so if we can reach the goal without it, all the better. But when we e.g. need excessive resolution or FOV, there's little we can do to avoid stitching. In that case we also want to start with as much image quality as possible, because we are going to lose some as we go.

Bart

Michael Fontana · Apr 7, 2009

Bart, that's not a argument against stitching, I'm doing it right now ;-)

But on some shots, I want just go straight, just a example:

for a bookproject which will go to print in about 1 1/2 years I don't know exactly which shots will be used, and the image size, etc ...

but still want to capture the transitions..
Therefore I'm really glad to have a UW with a decent IQ, storing these images as RAWs in a "pool", to be selected and convert/edited later on.

BTW: During the easter days, I will capture at the construction site, as during 3 days nobody will work - 3 days of dust laying down....

Asher Kelman · Apr 7, 2009

Preparing shifted images for stitching.

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:
Dealing with distortion correction on shifted images requires preparation of the images (by adding blank space to the file to center the optical axis) or the use of a parallel offset parameter in the stitching software.

So in photoshop one would mask the areas not needed in a separate layer. That will work.

Now let's consider the optical axis. Are you referring to the true optical axis which is already in the picture or else the virtual optical axis of the virtual double-super wide angle lens resulting from stitching. If thats the case, one simply would add double the width on the side away from the shift but and duplicate that layer and then mask out the new black space on that side only.

Is that what you are proposing?

Asher

If there is a tilt and a stitch of L and R shifted images, BTW, if there is a a tilt, it has to be 90 degrees to the shift or else one needs a view camera. Otherwise the plane of focus would jump forward or backwards, LOL!

looking for a wide angle in the range of 18 to 20 mm

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