Wide Angle Lens Recommendation

J. Clarke wrote:
Paul Furman wrote:
Eric Miller wrote:
Before I purchased my Canon 5D, I was using a 10D. My wide angle
lens was a Sigma 15-30mm and I was reasonably satisfied. After the
5D purchase, I sold the 10D and the Sigma. Now, I find myself
needing a wide angle lens for shooting home interiors and am looking
for some recommendations. I have a Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 but it's not
really wide enough for that purpose, though I'm happy with it for
landscapes.

My budget is about $250, but I would go to $350 if necessary. I will
be using the home interior shots for the web only so I don't need
the best, brightest or sharpest lens out there. I also don't want
utter junk. It would be nice to also be able to play with it for
other purposes. I think I can get another Sigma 15-30, but may have
to wait a while to find one at that price on eBay, so I'm asking for
recommendations.
Non-Ai 20mm f/3.5 Nikkor-UD if you can find one. That's an old lens,
introduced in 1967.

If 20mm will do

That's about 13mm (APS equivalent) to the 15mm he's accustomed to.

keh.com has a couple of 20mm Canons for real cheap.

Manual focus is a bitch for wide angle so if there's a decent AF Canon
for the budget, that would be nice. I only know Nikon. Stop down
metering would be a drag.

The one I suggested was just a quickly researched educated guess at
something in-budget with a decent reputation. Pretty minimal distortion,
etc. The adapter could be cheap for an old lens like that.

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:13:34 -0700, "trouble" wrote:

Actually, if its just for the web, I second the stitched panorama
suggestion. Most stitching programs, including the one built into
Photoshop, should give you excellent results with any tripod. You can
probably even hand-hold the camera and get adequate results.

Hand-held indoor panos is simple, with any camera. Here's a 210 degree
indoor pano of a back-country alligator-hunter's store done with a P&S
camera and fish-eye adapter, zero CA in that gem of glass.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2424/...938b5ebc_o.jpg

35mm eq. focal-length of 18mm at the camera's zoom setting used at the
time. This works much better displayed in a panorama applet, so you don't
get all the bending as seen in this rectilinear format. The 5 overlapping
frames were shot in portrait orientation. I stood against the store's front
wall and turned as I took the shots in about 15 seconds of my time. The
wall on the far left is the same wall on the far right. There's hundreds of
items on shelves and displays hanging from the shoppe ceiling making for a
hand-held parallax nightmare, all the overlapping items and tourist's
trinkets easily seen in the full-res version of 6100x2575 (final crop
size). I used the SmartBlend plugin which automatically compensates for all
objects' parallax problems between the hand-held frames.

Fun info: There's a nice 17-footer on the ceiling, sold shortly after I
arrived there. Those aren't sneakers on the shelves in the center bottom
they're all alligator heads. The little bulls-eye target above the cooler
on the right wall was used to demonstrate to passing tourist customers how
to use a blow-gun. Lots of frightened parents went home with their Little
Billy and his new 3-ft. long blow-gun, with the included 6-inch
spring-steel needle-dart ammo. You could see the fear in their eyes as they
left the store, them thinking, "Oh my gawd, what did I just buy for my
little boy?! And I can't take it away now, it's too late!" LOL This is also
where I bought my nice crossbow with a scope on it. Spent a couple months
hanging out with the owners when in the area. Went out on hunts with them
quite often.

Hah! I just remembered. It's difficult to see in this downsize for the web,
but the photo in the 'gator-tooth-necklace display hanging from the ceiling
in the very center is one of my own 'gator photos that I printed up for
them. I got up about five feet away from two 15-footers for that shot.
Funny that--one of my own photos in one of my own panoramas. Too strange.
LOL

Annika1980 wrote:
On Jul 29, 2:00 pm, "Eric Miller"
wrote:
Not a bad idea, but I'd really like to spend less time post processing and
less time for the shoot.

So you don't want to spend any money or time, huh?
Damn, why not just talk someone into shooting the stuff for ya?


I have been looking at getting a pano head anyway
though, any recommendations?


The Panosaurus is probably the cheapest.
http://gregwired.com/pano/Pano.htm


I have one, and have used it extensively. It is necessary if there
is important stuff within perhaps 50 yards, depending on just
how noticeable an error would be. If the joins are in
foliage, for example, it could be much less distance.

I did several 360 degrees in Carlsbad Caverns, and it was very necessary.

It is not, however, a precision device, so you have to have adequate
overlap.

Doug McDonald

I thank everyone for their prior responses. I will likely just purchase
another Sigma 15-30mm, but before I do that, I did want to ask about one
other possibility. I see that there is a Russian made Zinitar 16mm full
frame fisheye lens available for relative little that is supposed to have
acceptable image quality according to reviews. After all, I will only be
using this for the web so it doesn't have to be even near tack sharp. What
sort of quality can I expect out of a combination of this fisheye lens and
software distortion correction with PTLens or some similar software? I
really a cheapskate at heart, and if I can get by for $150 or so, I'll do
it.

Eric Miller
www.dyesscreek.com

"Annika1980" wrote in message
...
On Jul 29, 2:00 pm, "Eric Miller"
wrote:

Not a bad idea, but I'd really like to spend less time post processing
and
less time for the shoot.

So you don't want to spend any money or time, huh?
Damn, why not just talk someone into shooting the stuff for ya?

Believe me, that was my first choice.

I have been looking at getting a pano head anyway
though, any recommendations?


The Panosaurus is probably the cheapest.
http://gregwired.com/pano/Pano.htm

I have one, but have never used it. For the stuff I do (landscapes)
it really isn't needed.
But for interior work you'd probably need to make sure you get all
those nodal points and stuff correct.

I saw a tutorial on making one out of aluminum. On my long list of projects
that I never have time to get to is to make a pano head out of wood.

BTW, shot any hummers lately?

I haven't had time to shoot any this year. I will probably take a day off
during the heavy migration and shoot some more. I really need to get a
better shot for my hot sauce label.

http://www.colibrihotsauce.com

In the one that I use now, the background is green which makes it very
difficult to change the background to the black on the bottle without making
the wings look odd.

Eric Miller
www.dyesscreek.com

Eric Miller wrote:
I thank everyone for their prior responses. I will likely just purchase
another Sigma 15-30mm,

Is that somewhat usable on FX? For web shots I guess you could crop.


but before I do that, I did want to ask about one
other possibility. I see that there is a Russian made Zinitar 16mm full
frame fisheye lens available for relative little that is supposed to have
acceptable image quality according to reviews.

The problem is you can't really compose the shot.


After all, I will only be
using this for the web so it doesn't have to be even near tack sharp. What
sort of quality can I expect out of a combination of this fisheye lens and
software distortion correction with PTLens or some similar software? I
really a cheapskate at heart, and if I can get by for $150 or so, I'll do
it.

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

Eric Miller wrote:

I saw a tutorial on making one out of aluminum. On my long list of projects
that I never have time to get to is to make a pano head out of wood.

I made one out of wood, angles reinforced/braced with some aluminium
bar. It works fine.
Mine has two quick-release tripod fittings, so can flip from vertical to
horizontal easily. It (and the "panosauraus") aren't really stable
enough for camera shake, but perfectly adequate for positional accuracy.
I also made a swinging cradle system to try, so that point of rotation
could be fixed on lens entry pupil position in the vertical position,
but for most situations then the parallax problem between adjacent
vertical frames isn't an issue - I never use it. If you were doing
massive resolution stitches, or something out of the norm, then it might.
"Nodal point" isn't quite the right term - see "lens entry pupil".
There are some databases fpor various lenses on the internet, but it's
very easy to measure with sufficient accuracy, using two vertical wires
or toothpicks set up at ends of a tabletop or whatever, especially easy
with a camera with liveview LCD and a magnified view. As well as
recording distance from film plane to determined entrance pupil, it's
easy just to mark the panoramic head with a felt tip pen, with note
about lens, and especially focal length if a zoom is used.