12-06-2011, 10:45 AM
I do not really get your quest. You want a lens which covers f-small to f5.6 basically, yet you talk about how lenses perform stopped down? How does that work?
Lenses indeed perform very similar in sharpness when stopped down. In prints it will be quite hard to say which image is from which lens. Performance wide open, contrast, sometimes the colours, character of bokeh, distortion and light fall off usually are more deterministic.
Back to your quest.... you say sometimes you want to use the wide angle wider than you can with the 16-40mm f4. It must be the look (shallow DOF), as the VR unit of that lens makes slower shutter times possible already.
With shallow DOF, sharpness of the lens is (even) less important, as when a lot of the photo is out of focus/blurry, the sharpness of the in focus parts does "pop", more easily.
You talk about both 35mm and 21mm, which I find a bit odd too. Those focal lengths are VERY different, and to me it seems you should first decide on which focal length you would like, before you select a lens for it... 35mm vs 21mm is like comparing a 100mm to a 200mm lens.
So... first I would determine which kind of lens I want (moderate wide angle? 35mm. Wide angle? 24-28mm. Ultra wide angle? 18-21mm).
35mm gives you then these options:
- Nikon 35mm f2. Not the greatest of lenses, but it does its job I guess.
- Zeiss 35mm f2. Very nice MF lens.
- Samyang 35mm f1.4. VERY nice MF lens, very affordable. As lenstip says:
"In this summary you can write just one thing: aces of the photographical market, it’s high time you got down to work seriously! If Samyang is able to launch a 540$ lens which, when it comes to the image quality, is only slightly worse than the Canon 35L, which can compete on equal terms with the Nikkor 1.4/35G and leaves far behind the Sony 1.4/35G; if such a lens is able to correct the lateral chromatic aberration, coma and vignetting the best of all instruments in this group and it is not worse when it comes to the distortion and astigmatism correction, what else could be said here?"
24mm:
- Nikon 24mm 2.8
- Sigma 24mm f1.8 macro. Lens I find interesting for its wide aperture, close up ability out of the box, and very affordable price. And its very nice bokeh for its focal length. A very underestimated lens, in my opinion. http://www.jannemiettinen.fi/wedding-blog/blog/wedding-photos-suomenlinna/
- Zeiss 25mm f2.8
21mm:
- Zeiss 21mm
- Zeiss 18mm
- Voigtlander 20mm f3.5
Lenses indeed perform very similar in sharpness when stopped down. In prints it will be quite hard to say which image is from which lens. Performance wide open, contrast, sometimes the colours, character of bokeh, distortion and light fall off usually are more deterministic.
Back to your quest.... you say sometimes you want to use the wide angle wider than you can with the 16-40mm f4. It must be the look (shallow DOF), as the VR unit of that lens makes slower shutter times possible already.
With shallow DOF, sharpness of the lens is (even) less important, as when a lot of the photo is out of focus/blurry, the sharpness of the in focus parts does "pop", more easily.
You talk about both 35mm and 21mm, which I find a bit odd too. Those focal lengths are VERY different, and to me it seems you should first decide on which focal length you would like, before you select a lens for it... 35mm vs 21mm is like comparing a 100mm to a 200mm lens.
So... first I would determine which kind of lens I want (moderate wide angle? 35mm. Wide angle? 24-28mm. Ultra wide angle? 18-21mm).
35mm gives you then these options:
- Nikon 35mm f2. Not the greatest of lenses, but it does its job I guess.
- Zeiss 35mm f2. Very nice MF lens.
- Samyang 35mm f1.4. VERY nice MF lens, very affordable. As lenstip says:
"In this summary you can write just one thing: aces of the photographical market, it’s high time you got down to work seriously! If Samyang is able to launch a 540$ lens which, when it comes to the image quality, is only slightly worse than the Canon 35L, which can compete on equal terms with the Nikkor 1.4/35G and leaves far behind the Sony 1.4/35G; if such a lens is able to correct the lateral chromatic aberration, coma and vignetting the best of all instruments in this group and it is not worse when it comes to the distortion and astigmatism correction, what else could be said here?"
24mm:
- Nikon 24mm 2.8
- Sigma 24mm f1.8 macro. Lens I find interesting for its wide aperture, close up ability out of the box, and very affordable price. And its very nice bokeh for its focal length. A very underestimated lens, in my opinion. http://www.jannemiettinen.fi/wedding-blog/blog/wedding-photos-suomenlinna/
- Zeiss 25mm f2.8
21mm:
- Zeiss 21mm
- Zeiss 18mm
- Voigtlander 20mm f3.5