Good wide angle zooms

SkedAddled · Expire: 2021-08-12

flavio81: You're still outside OP's criteria,
and you may not realize just how difficult it can be to obtain
an ultra-wide angle lens.

Fisheye? Sure, those are common and everywhere.
Ultrawide and rectilinear? Really, not so much.

A 14mm rectilinear lens for a Canon 5D4 is not nearly as common
as it is for something like a 40D or Micro-4/3rds or others,
while the others have had their places set in the lens categories.

Navigating lenses of any given camera system can be difficult,
but if you know what you have to work with, it shouldn't be a problem.

Lloydy · Expire: 2022-01-01

Alsatian2017 · Joined: 05 Mar 2018 Posts: 239

I'd just like to recenter the discussion a little bit. Wide-angle zoom lenses by definition are lenses that start as wide angle and finish as wide-angle or standard focal lengths. Some just mentionned standard zoom lenses which oscillate around the 50 mm mark, venturing more or less into the wide angle and short tele lens domains. Could we agree on that ?
I have a number of wide-angle zooms that i like a lot :

Canon FD 20-35 mm f/3.5 L : as good as its successor, Canon EF 20-35 mm f/2.8 L. But it potentially suffers from rotten slider bearings which could completely throw off the floating mechanism and thus wreck the sharpness at all settings. If you can find a sound one (good luck), it might be the second best 20 something manual focusing wide-angle zoom (the Leica R 21-35 mm being the best). I've written a review (in German) here : https://volkergilbertphoto.com/canon-zoom-lens-fd-20-35-mm-f-35-l/

Sigma MF 21-35 mm f/3,5-4,2 : sometimes available as a manual focusing version, mechanically sound and optically astonishingly good, even though a little bit weaker at 35 mm. Very resistant to flare, some field curvature?. Review here : https://volkergilbertphoto.com/sigma-zoom-gamma-ii-21-35-mm-f-35-42/

Nikon Nikkor 25-50 mm f/4 (AI-AI-S) : massive, beautiful build. Very good optics (a little bit soft at 50 mm wide open). Huge and heavy but otherwise very nice lens.

Minolta MD (Rokkor) 24-50 mm f/4 : in terms of IQ, very similar to Nikkor equivalent, but nicer rendering (smoother bokeh, warmer colors), like the Nikkor quite sensitive to flare.

Tamron SP 24-48 mm f/3,5-3,8 : optically, as good as the Nikkor and Minolta lenses, nice, robust build, yet small and lightweight. Weird, difficult to find and expensive bayonet lens hood. Without, the lens is very prone to flare and parasites (BBAR coating quite subpar).

Slalom · Joined: 10 Dec 2017 Posts: 158 Location: Stourbridge

RokkorDoctor · Expire: 2025-05-01

Alsatian2017 · Joined: 05 Mar 2018 Posts: 239

D1N0 · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 2530

The Tamron 07a 28-50mm 3.5-4.5 is a good performer and has a pretty good cfd (0.25m at 40 to 50mm).

Daisy by The lens profile, on Flickr

caspert79 · Joined: 31 Oct 2010 Posts: 3135 Location: The Netherlands

I have the CV 21mm f/3.5 and Minolta MD 35/2.8.

IMO it has a few advantages to use this setup instead of a wide angle zoom:
- They add only little weight to the camera (less strain on the neck) and are both very compact (the CV is very short and needs no adapter)
- I don't have to change the focal length in my camera all the time to activate image stabilization
- Both lenses have very good resolving power, so the allow perfectly for cropping

The CV is not cheap, but I will probably never replace it as it's all I'm looking for in a wide angle.

e6filmuser · Joined: 12 Nov 2010 Posts: 823 Location: Reading UK

This was from the Laowa 10-18mm at 18mm (f11?) on Sony A7r3: