what is your widest lens and why?

back alley

back alley

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ok, i'm thinking of going wider than my current wide, the zm 25.
zeiss is coming out with the 21/4.5 which i hear will be very sharp and more affordable (for me) than the 2.8 version.
cv has tons of sharp wide glass also. the 21, the 15, the 12, all look good from the pics i have seen on the great www.

i had the 21 and liked it but now i'm wondering about the 15 as it would be a significant jump from my 25.

i am also seeing some of my street (er, urban black and white) stuff going wider, with the 25 being the base or normal lens for my new possible project.
so 2 cameras, one with the 25 and the other with the ?.

help me fill in the blank.

thanks.
joe
 
Joe, wide for me is the way I like it. I have the CV 12, 15, 21, and 28, as well as Leitz 21 and 28. 28mm tends to be my normal lens with a 50 as a short tele. It is just he way I see and what I feel comfortable with. Wides let me "enter" the scene I am photographing, becoming more of a part and experiencing it. I do occasionally use longer length lenses as I need them.
 
Street stuff, imho, can be difficult with the uber wides of the 15 and 12mm variety. I only say this because there tends to be a lot of "extra junk" in the frame that you may not want.

You could of course crop down after the fact but not everyone wants or likes to do this.

The 21mm isn't so bad - I tend to like it and you can, basically, treat it like the 15mm in the sense that you can set your aperture; put your infinity mark at that point on the lens and fire away.

You just have to be wary of the width of the frame. I like it but I know some folks might find even the 21mm too wide.

Dave
 
My 20mm is very handy for things like carnivals, street fairs and so so where you have to be right up front to get any kind of a shot. Mine goes on a Nikon FM most of the time; haven't tried using one on an RF with a finder but it shouldn't be that big a problem.
The aircraft photos in this folder were done with a 20/3.5 Nikkor:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/74312783@N00/sets/821342/
 
16mm on my DSLR and 21mm on my RF.

I'm considering going from 21 to 25mm on the RF because the 21mm is wider than I want for the work I'm likely to do with the RF camera.
A 25mm f2.8 coupled, from CV, will be impossible to resist.
 
I have a CV 15/4.5 and 21/4 in LTM, and a 21mm in Contax RF mount. Of the two focal lengths, I find the 21mm to be much more useful overall. The 15mm is just about too wide for anything other than indoor use, and even then the apparent bending of vertical lines is kinda freaky. The 21 is a great lens for wide open "big sky" landscapes - I used this focal length extensively on the Contax in the Galapagos and in Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii. As a fringe benefit, the DOF on the 21 is still so enormous that focusing is almost a non-issue. Same is true for the 15mm of course, but as I said, I don't find it to be as useful.
 
Hi!

For my SLR, the widest is 28mm.
For my DSLR, I have a 12-24 zoom.
For non-SLR, the widest is 35mm.

And then I have a 16mm and a 8mm fisheye (SLR again).

What are my wishes?
A 10-20(22) for my DSLR? Not really, 12mm (19mm) are enough.
A 12-24 for my SLR? Yes, why not!
A 20mm or less for non-SLR? Yes, but those are bloody expensive! ;)
 
My widest is 21, and while I sometimes think about using something wider, it's just not something I'd use that often, so those don't tempt me too much.

What I really like about my 21 is its close focus ability; it gives the flexibility to make shots that have interesting and/or dramatic perspective, such as this one. The ZM 21 (both of them) will go down to .5m, which isn't as close as my OM Zuiko. OK, so that's not a fair comparison, SLR vs. RF, and close-up/macro is not RF territory. And the Zuiko is somewhat unique because of its floating element.

But other than that, I think a "regular" 21 is essential in my book, and a 21 on an M mount would be on my list. I got hooked on it when I had the 21/3.4 SA on my M3, and loved what I could do with that.

The other thing about the ZM 21/4.5, Joe, is that has a "C" designation, i.e., it's in the "Classic" line. It will be interesting to see how it differs from the 21/2.8, other than speed.

Also ... With the increased DOF that a 21 gives you, I'm not sure I would want to sacrifice the wider aperture. That's just me.

Earl
 
Currently, my widest lens is a 35. I tried a 21 over the summer, but sold it to help finance my M6. Like Roland, I really don't like swapping accessory finders. In fact, I don't like using them at all. So personally, I don't plan to go wider than 28.

If you are planning to use two bodies and only the two lenses for this project, swapping finders won't be an issue for you. And as all of the lenses that you are asking about require finders, I assume that you don't share my aversion to them. I used the 21 for some street work over the summer and did make a few photographs with which I was quite pleased. However, given how wide that lens is, I am inclined to think that Dave may be right in suggesting that the 15 is too wide for street photography. Still, you might get some very interesting effects with it. I suspect, however, that you would only use it on rare occasions. In the end, the choice probably depends quite heavily on the project that you have in mind.
 
My usual wides are 25 and 28mm. I find 21mm to be a little too wide for everyday photography and so, for me, it is a specialty lens for when I'm really trying to open up interiors or crowded spaces.

When I did more SLR photography, I used the 24/2.8 Nikkor as my everyday wide and sometimes carried a 17mm Tokina lens for when I really wanted to get some kind of wide effect. For that reason, the 20/21mm focal length never quite worked for me. When you really want to getIIIIIIIIDDDDEEEEE, it's not that much wider than the 24/25.

So you might want to think about the 15mm. I was starting to go that route until Stephen G. ran out of adapters to mount the 15mm onto Nikon RF bodies.
 
21/f4 Cosina. Wider than 21 makes me dizzy and is one of those cases where technical extremes don't lead to better photos, for me anyway. The next widest lens is a 35mm, and 50mm is my normal. No 28 for me.

In medium format my widest lens is a 50/f4 MC Flektogon. Then a couple of 65s, an 80 and a 90. So judging by the diagonal it's approximately a 28 and two 35s, and the 28 gets most use. It's funny how I end up with different lineups in the two formats that deliver quite different results. Then again, I need a 21 in 35mm format to get as much vertically on the picture as I get from the 50 on a square 6x6 negative, so it all adds up again somehow. I might get a 30/f3.5 fisheye one day, though.
 
28mm wide enough and easy enough to handle without spirit levels and such.

Ok, I have a 17-35 for my DSLR which isn´t as wide as it should be on an APS-C sensor :)
 
On my D200, my widest is 18-35, which also fits the F100. However, 18mm is too wide for me on the F100. On the M6 and SP, I've got 35mm. I'm sort of a narrow focus person.
 
The CV 15 is the lens that got me from SLR to RF in the first place. Through my job (architecture), straight wides are very useful. But you have to be careful, you can easily get carried away. So I tend to force myself not to use it too often.
Too much in a frame is not always good or suitable. Or in other words: Less is more. That's why I am very fond of my old Canon 25. Very, very suitable for city work.

But, I would not want to go without my 15!
 
Sigma 15-30 on a EOS Film camera, but it's only a 24mm FOV on my DSLR.

I got it for Hawaii a few years ago. Great fun, but you really need to have a good dominant foreground or subject. Panning with it, is motion-sickness inducing.

On the RF side, I use a SMC 28/3.5 with a m42->LTM adapter.
 
I don't think I could live without my 21. I have the VC 21 f4 right now but would love to upgrade to the ZM 21 2.8. When I bought the lens it was something I figured I'd use from time-to-time, but I find I use it as often as my 35 which means nearly 50% of the time. Amazingly I thought that the lack of rangefinder focusing would be a problem, but scale focusing with the aperture-priority setting on Bessa R2a has been liberating. Now I constantly challenge my friends with their super-fancy-digital-SLRs to a "who can get the shot faster" race. I always win.

For those interested I recently spent an afternoon in Paris shooting almost exclusively with the 21. I'll be posting more but the first few shots are here.
 
I tend to use 35 as my standard-everyday-walk-around-lens, but 28 already feels like an ultra-wide to me so I rarely use it, and never anything wider than that.

I guess I could use a 24 sometimes, but only in 1 of 100 photo oportunities. And I think it's useless to carry a lens to use it for one frame out of 3 film rolls...
 
My inventory...

My inventory...

...a lot of which only gets used on rare occasions.

17-35, Using it on the 17mm end more and more.
24-70, Use all of it a lot.
24mm, Just got it & haven't had time to use it as much as I should.
28mm, Also relatively new. Use it a lot since getting it.
45mm on 6x7 format, Also new. Trying to use it and learn how to use it. It's W - I - D - E.

So, looks like I'm well covered out to 17mm on 35mm film and the 45mm on 6x7 is comparable to 22mm on 35mm film. Beyond 24mm is tricky to use. If you need wider, go for it. :eek: :) ;)
 
mine is 35, I bought orion 15 which is 28 but it doesn't seem to be focusable(some issues with backfocus) , actually I never liked 28s, but it was sooo cheap I couldn't resist the lens I didn't want. So now I shoot canon 35/2 and 50/1.2 when it's dark. Why those are my widest? Because I can't afford CV 21 rightnow and don't like having SLR zeiss 20/2.8 to heave around on my canon P. On the SLR side I gave up, F4s is not a camera I'd call it a tank with taking pictures ability. In my SLR days I never got past 16mm zenitar but sold it as fast as possible.
 
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