Grex Photography Conference

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Grex Photography Item 55: wide angle lenses
Entered by eprom on Mon Mar 29 07:30:11 UTC 2004:

hmmm....

I have a 28-210 f4-5.6 right now. When I'm taking pictures of 
interior spaces, I can't get everything to fit in the frame.

So I'm thinking about going for a fixed 24mm f2.8 lense.

Any comments? Am I wasting my money? I can't seem to find any
pictures on the web that gives side-by-side comparision of
28mm vs 24mm.

9 responses total.

#1 of 9 by gull on Mon Mar 29 15:39:21 2004:

I don't have any experience with a 24mm.  I do have a fixed 19mm lens,
and it does a good job getting a lot into the frame in interior shots,
but it's such a wide angle that the distortion starts to become pretty
noticable.

Here's a shot with that lens (taken inside the steam hoist building at
Quincy Mine): http://www.gull.us/photos/hoist.jpg

#2 of 9 by happyboy on Mon Mar 29 17:54:47 2004:

re 0 i'd go with a 19 mm.

#3 of 9 by eprom on Thu Apr 1 01:53:50 2004:

I won the 24mm lense I had bid on.

I did look at the 19mm's on eBay, but the price difference 
($50 vs. $100+) was a huge factor for me. 

I did some quick calculations and this is what I found out
for a 28mm (viewing angle of 74 deg) vs. 24mm (84 deg) lens.

in a room 50 sq/ft (7.07ft by 7.07ft), with the 28mm lense
you can cover a maximum area of 85.969% with the 24mm you
coverage is 94.759%. This is assuming you are in a corner
of the room and have the camera pointed to the other corner.
( located at pt (0,0) facing vector <7.07,7.07> )

In a room 100 sq/ft (10 x 10 ft) with you camera centered and 
perpendicular, facing the opposite wall, the coverage changes
to 66.704% for the 24mm and 50.471% for the 28mm.
( located at pt (5,0) facing vector <0,10> )

see http://members.triton.net/eprom/24mm.jpg

#4 of 9 by gull on Fri Apr 2 16:08:37 2004:

Correction to what I posted above:
I was digging through my camera bag today and realized that the lens I
used is 17mm, not 19mm.

#5 of 9 by eprom on Sun Apr 11 03:30:11 2004:

The 24mm lense came in. I think it's now my favorite lens. 
Its a little tricky and takes some time getting used to. 
If the pictures come out good, i'll post em' online.

#6 of 9 by gull on Fri Apr 16 00:56:07 2004:

I want to get a lens somewhere around 30mm for my Canon Digital Rebel. 
The Rebel's image sensor is smaller than a 35mm film frame, so there's a
field of view cropping effect of 1.6x.  A 30mm lens would be equivalent
to a 48mm lens on a regular 35mm camera.  It came with a 18-55mm,
f3.5-5.6 zoom but I'd like something faster.  With the sensitivity
adjustable from 100ASA to 1600ASA, this has the potential to be a great
camera for "available light" work.

#7 of 9 by eprom on Tue Apr 27 04:21:37 2004:

Here's a picture of my living room that I captured with my 24mm lens
http://members.triton.net/eprom/wide.jpg  I think it's about 1-stop
over-exposed.

#8 of 9 by gull on Tue Apr 27 14:49:09 2004:

That seems like a good lens for the purpose.  Pincushion distortion
seems really well controlled.

#9 of 9 by ball on Tue Dec 26 03:43:03 2006:

Has anyone here tried a Phoenix lens?  I have been looking
for an affordable 28mm lens, but the closest I've found is a
24mm f/2.8 for US$ 75.  I was expecting to pay about twice
that for an entry-level wide angle prime.  Is it too good to
be true?

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