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Wide Angle Lens +Film Camera
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Hey guys,
any suggestions about wide angle lenses for film camera. Considered 28/24/21mm with 2.8f.
Thanks in advance!
28mm is probably the most versatile, and the price of entry into wide angle. Wide, but not too wide to not be able to shoot a variety of subjects without distortion that is too notoiceable. A lot of street photographers use a 28mm, as well as those who like to shoot environmental portraits. Nice focal length for landscape too.
21mm is starting to get into serious wide angle territory, with massive depth of field, and quite adept at the near-far type landscape images you see. Used on the street too, and sometimes ignored by people, as they possibly don’t think you could be taking an image of them.
24mm is in between, and a nice compromise, I find. Wide enough to be useful when shooting interiors, it’s not too significantly wider than a 28mm, with regards to the noticeable distortion you may find from ultrawides, such as your 21mm & wider.
Ultimately, it depends on what you shoot, or why you would like a wide angle lens. Here’s a good write-up on what a wide angle lens is useful for: http://www.ultrasomething.com/photography/2010/03/the-contextual-lens/” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;.
Lastly the other factor is what other lenses you have, as you may wish to compliment your existing focal lengths.
If new to shooting with a wide angle, a 28mm is a good place to start, in the absence of other wides being more suitable.
Have fun, shooting well with a wide is not easy, but sure is fun :)
When I started off in photography and thought I needed prime lenses, I liked to space my line up using about a factor x1.5 focal length between lenses.
So since 35mm and 50mm were pretty much a given, the next logical choice was 24mm and then a 16mm. This has worked pretty well (and x1.5 is still ± my lens spacing for large format work (4×5, 6×17, 5×7) and the very occasional recreational vintage rangefinder photography outing).However, when I bought a 20mm for SLR underwater work, it actually took a while before I went even wider and I often ended up running around with a 35mm and 20mm combination. It comes down to personal shooting style. Yes, 20/21 is very wide and initially harder to make good use of. So I’d also suggest a 24mm. You may never need anything wider.
I now just have one 17-35mm f2.8 for both my SLR and DSLR on the wide end. It is as good, if not better optically than my AF 20/2.8, faster (as in actually getting the shot (AF/MF zoom)) and probably lighter and cheaper than the three primes it replaces.
How well F/2.8 work out on 24mm for SLR? Does background looks blur enough behind the object?
….whats “enough”? Of course you get a blurry background if you focus close enough and your background is far enough away. If you’re worried, you can always get a lovely 24mm, f2 or even one of those big f1.4 versions, but longer lenses are probably a much better tool for OOF work.
Once you get to MF or LF you have a whole gamut of other options of course. Or look into a tilt lens.Pilipoff, I suspect you need to read up a little on depth of field and the contributary factors to shallow depth of field, if that is a primary need in the wide angle you’re looking for. Shallow depth of field is not something commonly attributed (although certainly possible in some situations) with wide angle lenses. A rudimentary glance at depth of field tables online, should show you quite quickly what level of depth of field you can hope to attain. This is a function of focal length, aperture, and also as mentioned – capture format.
Sorry, I should have clarified perhaps: Depth of Field (DOF) is of course independent of the film format, but dependent on the absolute focal length. 24mm is 24mm is 24mm….. but the larger the film (or sensor) size, the longer the focal length for the same angle of view of course, ie.e the shallower your DOF for a given angle of view and aperture.
But we’re getting off-topic here I think; but Damien is right: Pilipoff, please do yourself a favour and perhaps do some more general background reading before you commit yourself to a new purchase.
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