Wide Angle Lens for Interiors?

jeniveeev

jeniveeev

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Hi - im looking into investing a wide angle lens to shoot interiors for real estate work. i have a budget of £500 and will be using this along with a Nikon D300 (and D70). Any suggestions or advice would be most welcome?
thanks
Jen

:)
 
The Sigma 10-20mm on the Canon is a great lens, I think they do a Nikon fit so could be worth a look (y)
 
On nikon crop, tokina or sigma 12-24. Much sharper & better built than the 10-20. For outright wide-ness the 10-20 or tamron 10-24 would win, but on nikon the 1.5x multiplier makes it no so bad, its 15mm equiv (but often soft) vs. 18mm equiv (but so sharp you need gloves to handle it)
 
I'm in love with my tokina f2.8 11-16mm
 
Having owned the 10-20 in the past it did suffer from distortion, not too sure if it would be ideal for interiors/architecture - I'm sure someone who's used it for this can advise better

simon
 
Simon, it's got fairly bad distortion at the wider end, but if you're doing interior photography, you're going to suffer from distortion on any super wide lens.

Nothing that can't be fixed with photoshop.
 
Another vote for the Tokina 11-16.:)
 
I would use what you have and get a pano bracket. Then a 28mm equivalent works very well.

It will also be useful if you start doing 360x180 real estate work... But then you will need the Nikon 10.5 fish eye or sigma equivalent.

These pics show various angles you can easily achieve with a 28mm equivalent all taken with the camera in portrait orientation
2 shots wide 95 degrees
loo.jpg

5 shots wide 150 degrees
cellar-1_blended.jpg

2 shots wide 95 degrees
corridor.jpg

6 shots wide 165 degrees
sittingroom.jpg
 
Hi all - thanks kindly for your comments. Initially when i started looking at wide angle lenses i was thinking Sigma but i think the Tokina 11-16 is a very attractive option. from reviews i have read it seems to be one of the best for its money. The tamron i wouldnt be interested in as i already have one and its not only really heavy but the focus is really slow. the tokina focus/app are really fast compared to the the others. its also within the price range! would anyone have sample photos using this lens?
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
I would use what you have and get a pano bracket. Then a 28mm equivalent works very well.

It will also be useful if you start doing 360x180 real estate work... But then you will need the Nikon 10.5 fish eye or sigma equivalent.

These pics show various angles you can easily achieve with a 28mm equivalent all taken with the camera in portrait orientation
2 shots wide 95 degrees
loo.jpg

5 shots wide 150 degrees
cellar-1_blended.jpg

2 shots wide 95 degrees
corridor.jpg

6 shots wide 165 degrees
sittingroom.jpg
Click to expand...

Thanks Terry - i hadnt thought of this option, to be honest i dont know a lot about the fish eye and pano bracket but i will definitely be looking into this in more depth. I like the sharpness of your images together with the scale of rooms you have photographed. i did a google search on this equipment but it looked quite basic which is fine but is it easy and quick to use?
 
I don't know if the requirements have changed recently but I was told you couldn't use a really wide angle lens in the UK for estate agency work as it made the property look bigger that it actually was so it was classed as misleading advertising
 
I use a nodal ninja 3 mk2 but the nodal ninja 5 is a better option.
I use my standard 17-55 f2.8 lens at 17mm for these.
I use PTAssembler for the stitching.
All the shots were by available light.

I find it very quick to do But there is the usual learning curve.
Most of those shots could not have been taken any other way,
they are either too wide or too wide and high to do them with a wide lens.

You do not need a fisheye to do the shots like mine.

useful links
http://www.tawbaware.com/forum2/
http://www.nodalninja.com/index.html
http://www.nodalninja.com/forum/
http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/
http://www.tawbaware.com/ptasmblr.htm
 
Used Nikon f/4 12-24mm for less than £500, or a new (and just as good) Tokina 12-24mm f/4 - think they're about £420 new. Awesome lens and miles better than that crappy Sigma 10-20mm
 
foodpoison said:
Nothing at all. But as you can see specialman said the Sigma 10-20 was crap and I was just pointing out that it wasn't.
Click to expand...

Your shot indeed looks sharp.
However is it sharp over the entire field, and is that field flat, It will certainly suffer from Barrel and pincushion distortions, but that can be easily corrected automatically with PTLens.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
It will certainly suffer from Barrel and pincushion distortions, but that can be easily corrected automatically with PTLens.
Click to expand...

Having owned the 10-20 & tried it with PTlens I found it only corrected the less obvious distortions...at the extremes the Sigma produced images way beyond distortion correction and personally I didn't like the effect - I sold mine recently & have now started to go the "pano" route instead

simon
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
Your shot indeed looks sharp.
However is it sharp over the entire field, and is that field flat, It will certainly suffer from Barrel and pincushion distortions, but that can be easily corrected automatically with PTLens.
Click to expand...

Sharp over the entire cyclist, obviously background is falling out of focus due to that thing we call depth of field :p

Yes barrel distortion is pretty bad. As far as pincushioning goes, that's a telephoto effect.

Distortions are unbelievably simple to correct, however perspective distortion is not.
 
simonkit said:
Having owned the 10-20 & tried it with PTlens I found it only corrected the less obvious distortions...at the extremes the Sigma produced images way beyond distortion correction and personally I didn't like the effect - I sold mine recently & have now started to go the "pano" route instead

simon
Click to expand...

Panoramic images are the way forward (y)

But sometimes you just can't beat a good old fashioned wide angle shot :D
 
foodpoison said:
Sharp over the entire cyclist, obviously background is falling out of focus due to that thing we call depth of field :p QUOTE]
Does it provide corner to corner sharpness in a flat field?
Yes barrel distortion is pretty bad. As far as pincushioning goes, that's a telephoto effect.
Click to expand...
Barrel and Pincushion distortions are the result of the lens computation decisions taken by the designer. They can effect wide angle and telephoto lenses, zooms usually pass from one to the other being neutral in the centre of the range.
Distortions are unbelievably simple to correct, however perspective distortion is not.
Click to expand...

Not so... The lens in question seem to suffer from moustache distortion. this is very difficult to correct indeed.
Perspective distortion is the the simplest to correct of all as it is geometric.
Click to expand...
 
andyred said:
The Sigma 10-20mm on the Canon is a great lens, I think they do a Nikon fit so could be worth a look (y)
Click to expand...


Agreed, I did some interiors for a furniture shop and they came out great.
 
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