Sony 24 1.4 worth it ?

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Anyone had a chance to use one ? Expensive at well over £1K
 
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Yep. Had it for a short while (financial event). Light Sharp Fast. One of the best lenses I’ve ever owned. One day I’ll get another.
 
Get the 20 1.8, equal build quality, equally as sharp, more versatile, smaller, lighter and cheaper. I returned my 24 to exchange for the 20. Lots of reviews on YouTube, Dustin Abbott has a good detailed one.
 
Get the 20 1.8, equal build quality, equally as sharp, more versatile, smaller, lighter and cheaper. I returned my 24 to exchange for the 20. Lots of reviews on YouTube, Dustin Abbott has a good detailed one.

I was trying to decide between them actually. I was thinking the 20mm might be starting to get a little too wide
 
I'd say 24mm is definitely more versatile IMO. Works great for portraits, landscapes, astro, cropping to use as a 35mm f2 lens etc.

The 20 is great if you want to touch UWA focal length but doesn't work as well for environmental portraits.
 
I'd say 24mm is definitely more versatile IMO. Works great for portraits, landscapes, astro, cropping to use as a 35mm f2 lens etc.

The 20 is great if you want to touch UWA focal length but doesn't work as well for environmental portraits.

I don't see why not. A bit of extra care may be needed but 20mm shouldn't be all that worse than a 24mm.

With lenses like this your issues will include perspective distortion but I assume you're not going for a tight head shot here :D so assuming the shot is taken from a distance and the subject isn't posed in a way which could make the perspective an issue you should be ok on that... which leaves converging verticals and the possibility of people at the edges being distorted. Be careful though and I don't see any great issue going from 24 to 20mm.

A while back I stumbled onto a blog and the guy had shot a series of what I'll call boudoir portraits with a wide angle, all in good taste mind :D and they were good. Googling may find some 20mm environmental portraits. I'll do some myself over the next few weeks, if I get the chance. I was intending to get my 20mm out anyway.

Ah, here you go...


"With these lenses you have to watch out for perspective distortion and you should keep some distance to your subject as well. If you want to straighten the verticals you should keep in mind to leave some room for that when deciding on your framing. You can even use 17-24mm Shift lenses for that (as I did in the example above).

With lenses this wide (even talking about faster ones like the Sigma 1.8/14 or the Laowa 2/15) you will rarely have any visibly out of focus backgrounds though and you probably want to keep your subject close to the center of the frame, so it won’t be perspectively distorted."

This is one of my favourites at the moment, it's 24mm picture but I wouldn't have not taken this if I'd had a wider lens fitted :D

A7 and Nippon Kogaku 24mm f2.8.

iZNyDhc.jpg
 
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I don't see why not. A bit of extra care may be needed but 20mm shouldn't be all that worse than a 24mm.

With lenses like this your issues will include perspective distortion but I assume you're not going for a tight head shot here :D so assuming the shot is taken from a distance and the subject isn't posed in a way which could make the perspective an issue you should be ok on that... which leaves converging verticals and the possibility of people at the edges being distorted. Be careful though and I don't see any great issue going from 24 to 20mm.

A while back I stumbled onto a blog and the guy had shot a series of what I'll call boudoir portraits with a wide angle, all in good taste mind :D and they were good. Googling may find some 20mm environmental portraits. I'll do some myself over the next few weeks, if I get the chance. I was intending to get my 20mm out anyway.

There is a fair bit of difference better 20mm and 24mm and also between f1.8 at 20mm and f1.4 at 24mm.
It's nothing to do with taking care, you can almost use any lens for anything. It's just that 24mm in my experience just works better for portraits than 20mm or anything wider. I have had plenty wider lenses (still do in fact) and shot with them but I keep coming back to the 24mm/1.4 for majority of the portrait shots. I have (stupidly) sold it twice and bought it 3 times. Won't be making that mistake again.

That is not to take anything away from the 20mm, it's also a great lens but I don't think it's as versatile as 24mm.
 
I was trying to decide between them actually. I was thinking the 20mm might be starting to get a little too wide
I don’t find it too wide tbh, guess it depends what your main use will be.
 
There is a fair bit of difference better 20mm and 24mm and also between f1.8 at 20mm and f1.4 at 24mm.
It's nothing to do with taking care, you can almost use any lens for anything. It's just that 24mm in my experience just works better for portraits than 20mm or anything wider. I have had plenty wider lenses (still do in fact) and shot with them but I keep coming back to the 24mm/1.4 for majority of the portrait shots. I have (stupidly) sold it twice and bought it 3 times. Won't be making that mistake again.

That is not to take anything away from the 20mm, it's also a great lens but I don't think it's as versatile as 24mm.

I know there's a difference between 20 and 24mm. You may know that at times both a 20mm and a 12-24mm where my most used lenses. Even today I still have 17, 19 and 20mm lenses. And yes, it is about care and specifically it's about looking and seeing and understanding what's going on and why. In your experience 24 is better than 20 for you but that's a personal preference and someone else could well be perfectly ok with 20mm as an environmental people shot lens. See the examples in that link above.

Buying a 20mm may be an expensive mistake but to say 24mm is better for environmental portraits is just expressing a personal preference and nothing more as at the distances and compositions I'm thinking about the extra wideness won't be a deal breaker, for me :D

Depth of field between 24mm f1.4 and 20mm f1.8 is neither here nor there for me as with these lenses you're going to have to get up close and personal to get shallow DoF and that will bring perspective into play. For people pictures I see this sort of lens as being best for getting just about everything in the DoF or when deliberately going for perspective distortion.

PS.
I'm not recommending a lens, just saying either 20 or 24mm could be doable :D
 
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