T2i Thoughts on using a wide angle converter over a 50mm 1.8?

blake2404

blake2404

Well-known member
Wondering if anyone has tried it.....like an opteka x45.....which would make the 50mm into a 22mm...i realise you lose like half an fstop........but wouldnt that be an improvment over the kit lense (efs 18-55, 3.5-5.6)?

just looking for a good low light/wide angle solution

thanks
 
Well, really almost anything is better than the kit lens. I have a T2i and what I have done is put together a set of Nikon manual prime lenses for it. I have a 20mm f2.8 AI Nikkor, a 24mm f2.8 pre-AI Nikkor, a 35mm f2.8 AI Nikkor, a 50mm f1.4 pre-AI Nikkor, a 50mm f2.0 AIS Nikkor, a 100mm E-Series Nikkor and a 200mm pre-AI Nikkor "Q" lens. The lenses are outstanding and I love them. I have bought them all off of eBay and I have paid, $909.92 for all of them (that is with shipping). The most I paid was for the 20mm f2.8, which cost me $377.55, with shipping. It is an amazing lens, very wide, fast and sharp. If you have a T2i and the kit lens, and can get a Oteka x45 real cheap, then go for it and try it. If you are wanting to expand your lenses for that camera, I suggest shopping around and getting manual Nikon lenses. The T2i is not going to be the last camera you are going to buy, so why buy lenses that will only work on that camera. With the manual Nikon prime lenses, you will know that the lens will be adaptable to almost any camera that is going to be offered in the foreseeable future.
 
some time ago I bought something on ebay, don't even remember what it was, and the seller sent me one of those screw-in-front-of-your-lens adaptors by mistake

it was the most awful piece of s**t you can put in front of your lens; think absolute blurryness and 50-pixels-wide ultra-evident chromatic aberration in pictures taken inside the house, don't even think about taking it outside

only suitable for "special effects", as in "for some strange reason, now I want a very wide but totally blurry and aberrating shot"; I've seen a couple of those in music videos, and it can look artistically nice, but I've never felt the urge to inflict such suffering to my images myself

(the macro adapter that came with it made for a totally awesome DIY viewfinder loupe, though)

+1 for vintage lenses, but in fact all I have are 35mm or longer: either vintage wides are relatively not as good as longer lenses (I hear wides are more difficult to design, as light has to be bent more), or I've had some bad luck with my samples
 
The first thing you need to know about the Opteka .45X is that whoever labelled it was on happy pills. I bought one this week, and when I compare in with my .75X Canon wideangle adapter ... I get essentially the same field of view. I figure it's about a 0.72X conversion, so your 50mm would become a 36mm.

For it's price, the Opteka is quite sharp except at the edges (and no worse than the Canon which cost 3X more). It is light and compact, and has a front filter thread. However compared with the Canon it has very pronounced barrel distortion, and so will not suit some kinds of shooting.
 
so to recap, everyone is of the opinion that i will the 50mm 1.8 will be wider but the image will be inferior to even using the kit lens.

I am saving for something like the sigma 20mm 1.8......bur a last inquiry on the 20mmish 2.8 lenses with are of course a lil cheaper, the extra 3/4 of an fstop is significant enough to shoot better shots indoors......in other words it can be a subto low light/wide lens?
 
totally on board man, i've decided i need a minimum of 20mm, considering the sensor crop.......and i want the 2.8.......question.....first can u recommend a good adapter for the t2i, second if i go for an old manual lense, will that affect how i set aperature/shutter/iso digitally?
 
with old manual lenses, you set your aperture on the lens itself, the rest are set on the camera; I do it all the time and it's not terribly problematic

still, as I said, vintage lenses on the wide side are not my cup of tea; make sure you see some images taken with the lens you intend to buy before committing yourself to it: it's a very personal issue (I like vintage lenses that are very sharp and not too contrasty, I don't like them when they are not as sharp as current lenses or when they loose too much contrast; other people have different tastes)

the alternative would be the tamron 17-50 f/2.8 non-VC: awesome lens, really sharp, and relatively fast; you can check it out, compared with my other lenses, here:
http://www.similaar.com/foto/lenstests/lenstestsa.html
 
your awesome man, thanks a lot, im excited now.....one more thing.......the was talk about how updated the lens something about mib (motor noise i think) how can u tell which is which?
 
update, bought the tamron 17-50 2.8 non vc.........350 refurbished with uv filter.......loooooooove it man, what a difference from the kit lens.......sharp, fast, wide, what else can i ask for.....thanks to all for their patience.........next up?.......lcdvf, monitor, matte box.
 
blake2404 said:
update, bought the tamron 17-50 2.8 non vc.........350 refurbished with uv filter.......loooooooove it man, what a difference from the kit lens.......sharp, fast, wide, what else can i ask for.....thanks to all for their patience.........next up?.......lcdvf, monitor, matte box.
Click to expand...

2 questions

How much better is it than the kit lens and where did you buy it for that price?
 
well i live in toronto so i bought it off a site called kijiji.ca similar to craigslist, but with less scams/spam.

was used technically, but he only used it a few times as he was going to a 5d........anyways.....how much better?.......there are many threads/posts here discussing it and those members probably out rank me in knowledge....lol......however all i can say is it may not be night and day but its significant........to be honest just the difference between 17 and 18 mm is noticable. its not a 1.8 but at 2.8 i can shoot with very little light and get awesome footage without going past 800 iso, where with the 3.5 kit lens id have to often go to 1600 or sometimes 3200 with the same environment. and with the t2i you dont wanna go past 800 iso.

also and to me this was the deal maker.......it stays 2.8 all the way through the zoom range, the kit lens doesn't.

i'd reccomend this to anyone who is where i am at.....which is a dslr filmmaker who needs a wide lens with good low light performance.

in short i love it....lol
 
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