Wide Angle Canon Prime

[chrisforshaw]

As the title suggest I'm looking to try a Canon wide angle prime. I've done the 24-105 thing and want better quality but I don't want the weight of the 24-70. Has anyone got any experience of the 24mm f1.4 or even the Zeiss 21mm?

 

[DuncanDisorderly]

Chris - depends on what you feel is lacking with the 24-105.
Are you after better image quality or a bigger aperture?

The 24-70 is a stop faster, but don't expect better-quality used wide open.
Ditto with the 24mm f1.4 II.
Review sites like SLRGear indicate that at f4 the quality gain over the 24-105 is tiny and may not make any real world difference.
Plus the 24-105 has IS which makes a significant difference to hand-held shooting!

The sharpest Canon lens at 24mm is currently the 24mm TS-E II; it's quite exceptional.
But it's an expensive specialist lens and I'm not convinced the gain in quality will make a noticeable difference to an A3 print.

However - what I do suggest is sending your camera / lens combination to Canon for calibration.
It doesn't cost that much and if you are currently unhappy with the results from your 24-105 then it's possible you could get a noticeable improvement.
This is what I did, and the pixel peeping results from my 24-105 went from being acceptable to excellent.

 

[highpriest]

Has anyone got any experience of the 24mm f1.4 or even the Zeiss 21mm?

No personal experience with the 24 f/1.4 but this guy gets some spectacular results out of it (using the 5D):

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=37351143

Cheers

 

[vaizki]

I'm a bit in the same "boat" (if you can call affording spending on primes a boat), and it seems like there are good L-primes in the Canon lineup for wide-angle, but if you don't go for them it makes more sense to use a 17-40/4 or 16-35/2.-8 II than it does to buy the cheaper old primes like 20/2.8 or 24/2.8.

That's the impression I've gotten from a bit of research. So now I'm wondering which WA zoom to get..

 

[chrisforshaw]

I'm after better quality ideally.

I've had a 17-40 and its a great lens but 2.8 is what I'd be after really. Having read a lot of reviews I'm not that sure the 16-35 represents value for money when compared with the 17-40.

I could perhaps look at a 35mm as on a FF there would be a relatively wide angle.

 

[vaizki]

I have the 35/1.4L and to be honest I don't consider it to be very wide on a FF camera.. The 24/1.4L II however is a real WA blast but I'm not sure I can afford both..