18mm/20mm lenses for general usage

A

andrew00

Well-known member
Hey,

So on my friend's short a few weeks back the camera guy, who had shot a lot of a v well established film franchise, was saying how he was only using an 18mm lens. Apparently he'd shot most of the last film with it (out next summer) and was a big fan of the 18mm.

Having look at the footage I can safely say it looks amazing, so I was thinking of picking one up myself, partly because I like the look, but also for the wide angle and the close focusing.

However the 18mm Nikon is v. pricey so as an alternative I've seen the 20mm Nikon 2.8 and 20mm Sigma 1.8, which are about £450 and £250 respectively.

I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on which one of these to get. I'm leaning towards the Sigma because, although I expect the Nikon glass to be lovely, with the Letus losing light and all, I'm curious whether the extra light will be useful. In fact I've even wondered if my Letus is working properly at times as it seems to lose so much light.

Also, what do we think of 18mm ish lenses anyway?

Cheers
 
The Nikon 18mm AF is not very good. The 17-35mm zoom is actually better @ 18mm, and about the same price.

The old AIS 18mm f/3.5 is better than the AF, and cheaper. (But loses more light)
The AIS 20mm f/2.8 is also excellent.

I would also consider a Tokina 17mm f/3.5, available in Nikon mount. You can find it for a couple of hundred used.
 
I've got a Nikkor 20mm 3.5 lens that is good, but not great if you want to pick up something cheaper until you can afford the better glass.
 
if you can deal with the short focus throw and no hard stops the 17-35 nikon would be a nice bet.

Also maybe look into the tokina 11-16

It is pretty typical to find a wider lend than an 18mm in a professional environment. The real issue is dealing with lend performance and softness. Ideally if you're using an adapter and trying to use wide lenses you want to sort of define your field of view first.

At s35 fov on am 18 would be more like a damned 10mm at full grand fields. You also have to consider that a an 18mm @ s35 fov is probably gonna be sharper across frame than an 18mm @ full frame due to lens design.

An adapter operator employing a vistavidion or full frane fov will probably have a 17/18mm or even 20mm as the widest lens while one that employs an S35 fov might have a 14mm as the widest.
 
Since this is in the 35mm adapters section, I'll say "vignetting" - pending on what adapter you are usuing, at such wide angles. It may apply
 
I have the Sigma 20-40mm f2.8. Good lens, very versatile, and a lower cost alternative to the Nikon 17-35. I will say that focusing with it is a little difficult sometimes, the focus is VERY touchy so take your time with getting it just right and be sure to double check for each setup. I used to have the 20mm f1.8, but in my use I never needed it to be that wide open, and would usually stop down to 2.8, 4, or 5.6 anyway to get a crisper image, and usually with a lens that wide of an angle it's rare you'd want such a shallow DOF anyway, it would just look a bit odd and unnatural in my opinion.
 
Yeah that's another reason I'm looking at a wider lens, you have to zoom into the ground glass anyway.
 
andrew00 said:
Yeah that's another reason I'm looking at a wider lens, you have to zoom into the ground glass anyway.
Click to expand...

Except that the trade-off in edge to edge might be too much if you zoom in too far. I was on a shoot where we used a sigma 8mm fisheye. Had to zoom in to Z99 and the resulting image is not what I would call sharp.
 
My vote is for our favourite wide angle, the Nikon 17-35 f2.8D. It has excellent edge to edge sharpness wide open (but not perfect) and the best edge to edge illumination of any lens we've ever tested at 17mm. Being that infinity is achieved at a relatively close distance, the focus throw is not a deal breaker for this lens. Its ability to focus on objects as close as ~3 inches makes for some pretty cool shots too.
 
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