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Best wide lenses
  • 120 Replies sorted by
  • PsycoPsyco

    Lenses to consider: Olympus Zuiko 4/3

    • 7-14mm F4 (like Pany 7-14, better built quality, heavy)
    • Zuiko 14-35 F2.0 (very good lens and F2.0 @ 14mm is ok, very heavy and big)

    Oh, and @Vitaliy: You are listing the Tokina 11-16mm under m4/3...is there a m4/3 version of this lens?

  • LongJohnSilverLongJohnSilver

    And the Panny 8mm fisheye? Wide open it's sharper than the 7-14mm. Of course it's fisheye.

    Here the Oly 12mm f2 vs Panny 14 f2.5

    http://www.thephoblographer.com/2011/10/04/micro-four-thirds-lens-comparison-olympus-12mm-f2-vs-panasonic-14mm-f2-5/

  • AmandaNLAmandaNL

    9-18 oly is also on my list, one of the few wide-angle lenses that accepts screw filters!

  • yeehaanowyeehaanow

    @ttancredi I have the olympus 9-18 m4/3 and it's a great super compact lens. Man that thing is tiny. Full wide is sharp corner to corner. I think I found it for $350 used?
    In low light it's almost TOO sharp and tends to exaggerate noise maybe. More testing necessary with various patches and such to really confirm this.

    Also got the Opteka 6.5mm fisheye. Also very sharp and a fun fun lens. I think it's the widest you can get and will cover an aps-c sensor too. I got it mostly for doing spherical panoramas but I shot some video while ice-skating and it works really well for high-action sports/ lot's of movement type shots. And out in the wide open it has less fish-eye-ness than I expected.

  • ttancredittancredi

    I tried convincing myself that 14mm was wide enough. ( the 14 pancake would be ideal than) But I really feel the need to go wider while trying (and spending weeks) to compose static powerfull shots. Most used lenght would be 8-10mm

  • brianlucebrianluce

    This is the lens I use the most. You have to adapt it, the auto focus is a bit slow and noisy, but it's good. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/590390-REG/Olympus_261060_14_54mm_f_2_8_3_5_II_Zuiko.html

  • ttancredittancredi

    Anyone tried olympus 9-18mm for landscape shooting? Wonder if it is as contrasty as the pannys

    Still waiting to invest some money in a good wide glass. ( meawhile shooting with wide adapter atached either to the 20 1.7 or the kit 14-42).

    Just saw, on vimeo, some good footage of fisheye rokinon 7.5mm corrected on AE. a little soft in the cornerns but definetelly much better than wide converters..

    Anyone else tried working around with fish-eyes?

    Rokinon design really reminded me of voigtlander 15mm m mount.

    How nice it would be having a proper wide reliable and highly portable lens.

  • stoneystoney
    I don't think Panny will make cine lens for m43. I'm bearish in seeing pro m43 lens anytime soon. Panny must sell lots and lots of consumer quality bodies and lenses first before developing pro lens. You know... the critical mass.

    Ah... another nice seb33's video. I've been wondering how the heck he got it so stable using only handheld. Mystery solved. He uses his nose bridge to support the camera. He has a tripod like feature on his face!!! I don't have that. me.. sad.
  • GOODEMPIREGOODEMPIRE
    I have one extra 20mm to sell. Got 2 in a rush once heard of the soaring prices. Let me know if anyone's interested.
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    > cine-style version of the 20mm, same optically but with proper focus, aperture ring, made it bit larger ofcourse, larger filter thread, markings etc:) would buy it in a heartbeat! :)

    Hmm. Price of 20mm is already in $450-480 region.
    Such cine version will be about $1000. May be more.
  • stefanosstefanos
    kind of random, but it just occured to me how awesome it would be if pana made a new cine-style version of the 20mm, same optically but with proper focus, aperture ring, made it bit larger ofcourse, larger filter thread, markings etc:) would buy it in a heartbeat! :)
  • stoneystoney
    +1 on Lumix 14.5 & LA7200. Wide angle & anamorphic & fast AF. Sounds great. I own neither though. But it sucks that Lumix 20.7 has moving front element and 14.5 isn't as good as 20.7.
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    Andrew, it is good idea to make separate topic on C-mount lenses and B4 zooms.
    People need detailed samples and video links to understand that is useful in their projects :-)
  • EOSHDEOSHD
    The interesting wide c-mounts are:

    Computar 12.5mm F1.3 - almost covers entire sensor, slight crop needed to avoid vignetting.
    Pentax 6mm F1.2 - works as fast wide angle (roughly 28mm equivalent) in Ex-Tele crop mode.
    Rainbow 3.5mm - as tested by Seb Farges here:


    My personal favourite is not a c-mount, I like the look of the 14mm Lumix pancake with my LA7200 anamorphic with 1.33x wideness stretch in one direction producing 2.35:1 wide-screen with a roughly 10mm focal length at F2.5
  • bitcrusherbitcrusher
    I am using the Tokina 11-16mm. It really is a nice lens but is quite big and heavy.

    Would love to see fast wide prime... something in the f2 range so that goyo lens sounds nice.
  • svartsvart
    I have a 16mm Sigma filtermatic fisheye. You can find them around 150-200$. They are pretty decent for the price but tend to have problems focusing at infinity. The edge distortion is manageable and the barrel distortion is fairly even across the frame. I did have to modify an adapter(shortened it by 1mm) to get infinity focus.
  • stefanosstefanos
    if the goyo is actually a "real" lens that we can buy, I assume it's not going to be cheap, at 12mm f/2 (23mm image circle coverage) my guess is above 400$ . the pentax is dead cheap yeah. I agree. I'll make separate threads though, I'll get my act together now that I have time and make some reviews. I ordered a huge gini shoulder rig and the 10" monitor that are coming in tomorrow. So I've got quite a few toys to review very soon:)
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    @stefanos

    I suggest you to make separate topics for cheap and less expensive lenses, like C mounts.
    What do you think?
    I hope that we'll be able to find gems with time.
  • stefanosstefanos
    I'm trying to find out more about the Goyo lenses but their site and customer support is terrible ofcourse, and then how do you hunt one of those lenses down is another question.
    http://www.goyooptical.com/products/industrial/GMHR61220MCN.pdf
    This lens, if it's cheap and good would be the most awesome-perfect lens for me right now 12mm f/2 !!! And most industrial c mounts have very good build quality, aperture with no clicks, and some of these megapixel lenses are extremely sharp edge to edge cause they are used often for measuring and scientific processes.
    A ultra low budget option is the pentax 6mm 1.2 c mount lens used with the ETC crop mode on GH2. I've been using it way before the other bloggers "discovered" it. I had to machine it though to achieve infinity focus. Build quality is excellent, very small, sharp, cheap, it becomes about 31mm FF equivalent. The only downside is that as we know the crop mode looks bad at high iso with very noisy blacks and shadows, so it's not ideal in very lowlight.
  • stoneystoney
    I want 7-14... but $$$$
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