Recommend me a wide angle / landscape lens

[Gott23]

As per the title, criteria being

Top price around £150
Sharp and infinite focus capable on an EOS and an A6000
Minimum aperture at least f/22
For use on a full frame mainly
Prefer m42 or exakta mount but if there's something worth buying yet another mount for..

I'm open to suggestions about zooms but I'd prefer a prime

Also open to suggestions other than wide, some of the more interesting stuff I've done has been with 135s..

Im having to budget so i figure I'll save up for a bit and have a Christmas spurge.. 😆

[Sciolist]

[cooltouch]

I'm curious -- how much experience do you have using wide angle lenses? Because the more experience you have, the more you'll be able to relate to ideas and concepts that will be tossed around in this discussion. But anyway, I'll begin. Apologies in advance if I discuss stuff you're already familiar with.

Of all the wides, the most popular for full frame cameras is 28mm. And it is because of the popularity that I consider 28mm to be boring. I almost never use 28mm unless it's the wide end of a zoom I'm using.

The minimum acceptable focal length I use for landscape shots is 24mm. It provides just enough angle of view beyond 28mm to make a scene interesting. But there's no reason to stop with 24mm. 20mm gives an even wider, more dramatic view and 17mm an even wider and more dramatic view than 20mm. But these wider wides come at a cost. Good quality super wides (about 20mm or so) and ultra wides (about 17mm or so) are usually fairly expensive. Your 150 pound limit will probably be barely enough for a clean used example. One advantage to 24mm wides is they are usually much cheaper than super or ultra wides.

Now, having said all that, one needs to realize that the super and ultra wides are not general purpose wides the way 28mm is. They will be too extreme in many cases. But they can really shine with landscapes. I recommend that, so you get a feel for the effect of these lenses, you do some online searching on the subject. Perhaps visiting flickr.com and viewing photos from specific focal lengths will be helpful in determining your goal.

Now, as for mount. You mention Exacta or M42. I don't recommend Exacta because it is an obsolete mount for later makes of primes. M42 is fine, but if your cameras are EOS and Sony mirrorless, you have other possibilities available that you shouldn't limit yourself away from. I recommend you also consider Nikon mount because of the ubiquitous nature of Nikon. You're going to find a better selection for Nikon than you will M42 and a much better selection for Nikon than Exacta. Pentax, Olympus, and others are also possible, with decreasing order of popularity.

Finally, we get into brand names. Since I recommend Nikon mount, that means I'm probably predisposed to recommending Nikon lenses. But this isn't necessarily the case. For example, I don't particularly recommend a Nikon 24mm because they are not very well known for edge sharpness. Actually, my preference for 24mm is Tamron, although there are other good brands. I own a Tamron 24mm and I found mine to be sharper than my Nikon 24mm. At 20mm, the selection is more limited. There are a few aftermarket makes that are decent performers, but my only experience is with Nikon. Specifically the pre-AI UD-20mm, which is a great old lens. And finally in the 17mm range, there are a few decent choices. The most popular aftermarket ones are Tokina and Tamron. Both 17mm f/3.5, and both considered to be basically equivalent to each other. There are other makes here too, especially at 18mm, some of which do a good job,such as Spiratone and Sigma models. I own both a Tamron and a Tokina-made Vivitar 17mm f/3..5 and, although the handling is different between the two, the resulting images are very close to each other in terms of sharpness and contrast.

[D1N0]

What is a wide angle on full frame is a normalish lens on the a6000. You could get a 24mm that still is a moderate 36mm equivalent WA on aps-c .

[cooltouch]

Yeah, and an ultra-wide, like a 17mm or 18mm, is about the same as a 28mm on full frame. But since he mentioned full frame, I decided to go with full frame focal lengths in my discussion.

[wolan]

[Excalibur]

...just to add you could use say a 50mm, and take multiple shot of a scene and join the images together. Some guy posted an excellent shot of a castle and grounds (from a distance) and IIRC took about 18 shots and joined them together....no converging verticals etc with a 50mm and more like what the eye would see...well I've read that the eye is equivalent of about 40 or 50mm lens.

[l9magen]

[Lloydy]

On my A6000, and NEX5, I like the Tokina 17 / 3.5 a lot, it's been my most used wide lens for a long time. But it's a different lens on the full frame A7II, I'm not that impressed with it.

There's a lot of decent 24's, some are cheap as well. I've got 24's from Tefnon, Clubman and Hoya that worked well on the A6000. And one of the best budget lenses is my Vivitar 24 f2.

[kypfer]

[Gott23]

Firstly, thanks for all the input!

Just working mental long hours with zero time for anything.. >.<

OK firstly in terms of wide angle experience, I've used everything from fish-eye upwards on auto-focus, mostly with Canon and I had a 16-35 f/4 L for a while, previously having used the 10-22 or whatever the crop factor version lens was

Whereas with MF, widest is 20mm on a CZJ Flektogon f/4. Now, it is a gorgeous lens but it is a complete pain the derriere to use at times and for some reason I''ve never got on too well with it on my DSLR. I've got a smattering of 29s but that's not quite wide enough..

(oddly - I've been going through my flickr account to see what I've done with what so far; the lens that I've been most impressed by has been the Rodenstock Retina-Eurygon 35mm f/4 I got a while back. What i have managed to do with it on a full frame has been really impressive in terms of detail. If the Flektogon is an acquired touch, this is beyond that. It's so small but definitely warrants further testing. That aside though, the resolution of it is probably close to what i'd be after)

[Gott23]

So current research is the Fujinon range (what I've seen of that 19mm is quite something) and the Enna Ultra Lithagon 28m, which I know - it's a 28, but again some pretty impressive images I've seen with it so far., colours and contrast may be closer to the feel I'm after compared to the Fuji but will have to look a bit more into that... However, I did at one point own a Fuji 6x7 rangefinder and Ive had an x100t previousl, both were definitely impressive optically..

With that in mind though, Will have a test of some of the other things I have and give them a proper test. Which would include an Enna Munchen Lithagon 28/3.5; one using the weird spokel interchangable mount system for Exakta and feels almost victorian with the way the aperture ring is designed - let alone too hard a focus and the damn thing can pop out! >.<

A Super Tak 35 is pretty much bought once I can get some ebay flogging done.. (on that note I have a gorgeous radioactive Pancolar 50 going spare and a couple of other nice german lenses...)

I'll have a look at the other mentions and comment more later.. my brain's rattling already with just writing this post.. #ruined

And for reference, this was the Flektogon on a good day.. (ND grad filters and desaturation in PP)

[SkedAddled]

Yeah, Canon's ultrawide EF-S is 10-22mm; Sigma's is 10-20mm.

I own a Sigma 10-20, and it's been great for very wide on APS-C cameras.
Having just chucked it onto the 5D4, it provides significant vignetting on full-frame,
so I'm now also searching for a wide for full-frame use.

I'd be wondering about barrel distortion and other aberrations when using
various wides, particularly vintage lenses.

A recent visit to eBay shows prices for vintage 20 and 24mm wides selling
for around $200 and far upwards. Conversely, there's a Canon EF 20-35 USM
selling used for around ~$120, which fits the criteria for not-crazy-expensive
while stretching down to 20mm.
While I don't use such a wide lens often, I've come to rely on having one
on the few occasions I do prefer it. I may grab one of these 20-35's,
unless something wider comes along.

[philslizzy]

I have a cosina 19-35 in Nikon fit, its available under Sigma, Voigtlander and Vivitar names also. A really cheap alternative to a 17mm. But on your crop frame camera it's only as wide as the standard lens.