What wide angle lens??

[paddy27]

Am looking for an x-mas pressie for myself this year. I have a NIkon F80 SLR and i am after a wide angle lens, i have a 28-10mm and am looking for something down to about 18mm or smaller.
Not really sure what to look at, has been a while since i was shopping.
Any and all help is appreciated.

[CVP]

Two obvious choices are 24mm and 20mm. The 24mm may not give a noticeably wider angle of view than your 28mm, but the 20mm is a different kettle of fish. It provides a simply staggeringly wide field of view. It is often very difficult to actually utilise the 20mm effectively.

What I mean by this is it's so wide angle that things get lost in the picture very easily, you really need to work on technique and make sure the foreground is filled with something interesting that leads you into the frame.

Optically the Nikkor 20mm and 24mm are widely regarded as very good lenses and many are available second hand now. Guys like Sigma also make some good wide angle lenses.

If you wanted to be really wacky you can go down to a 16mm fisheye, but these are very pricey and you also get the fisheye distortion. Can create some brilliant images but you may get bored of it quickly.

I've linked a couple of images I took with the 20mm to give you an idea of the angle of view. These are scaled for the web, so resolution has been compromised a bit, but they'll give you an idea.




HTH

Chris

[simpo two]

Hey CVP, when did you sneak in and film my swimming pool?

[beano500]

20mm


Lovely bit of kit - can't remember if it comes with the HB4, but I picked mine up on the secondhand market for a good price and it's nearly always on one of the bodies....

[te51cle]

Less than 18mm and you're getting into fisheye territory. I've got a 15mm but rarely use it. I'm very happy with the images from my Canon 24mm lens, its a nice wide angle that's noticeably more than a 28mm and without too much distortion.

I've got the equivalent of a 21mm lens for my medium format camera and I like that too. Haven't tried any of the 20-35mm zooms myself but they may be worth a look for you too.