wide angle: keep my full frame canon SLR, go nikon, or go fuji?

mrjames

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Hi, I'm currently shooting a 1d3 and i've just got a 1ds2
I shoot all sorts, I use wide angles for event/PJ coverage and occasional landscape use, but mainly for interiors, architectural shots and panoramas, I used to own a sigma 15-30 which was truly awful and now after a major clearout of nearly all my gear all I have left is a samyang 14mm 2.8
which is very wide indeed, too wide sometimes, even on a 1.3 crop. So i'm looking into a zoom lens

I like to shoot wide rather than tele so I don't mind spending some serious cash- i'd get the 16-35 2.8 tomorrow if I didn't feel reserved about dropping a grand on it (read too many bad reviews)- i'd get a nikon 14-24 and an adaptor but for events manual focus just doesn't work that well

Wide angle was always tricky on my 1.3 crop, but now I have full frame it's easier, but the corner sharpness is proving to be a new challenge as the 17-40 apparantly isn't going to cut it on full frame and although it's probably fine for events, If I am shooting mirror up f8 on a tripod with proper lighting and real care I hate to think that it's my equipment that's holding me back or limiting the quality of my photos- some of my best photos were shot on the worst gear, and now I regret that I can't enlarge them or keep them in my portfolio- I climbed up a mountain and the images I took with that cheap sigma lens were terrible, even back in the studio the lens was clearly a dud, that lens ruined my images I took during that period

so if the 16-35's only advantage is 1 stop faster, (which would be good but maybe not a deal breaker as shooting wide you usually want deep depth of field anyway) but if it is still going to give me dissappointing images then maybe I should get the 17-40 for convienience and a super sharp 24mm L prime to go with the 14mm, and it would be nice to have an f1.4 lens for really low light shooting or startrails/night time lapse, but realistically I want a single lens to cover a wide angle range and be as sharp as primes- maybe canon will release a 16-35 mk3 that is as sharp as the 24-70 mk2

speaking of 24-70's, they seem great, especially the tamron VC- and 24mm on full frame may be wide enough for me, making my wide angle choice easier- but i've not shot with the full frame enough to figure out if it's wide enough

that's if I even stick with the canon's- I might get rid of 1 of the canons and get a d800 with 14-24, or maybe i'll even get a fuji x series with a really nice wide lens (the 10-24 when it comes out?) for wide angle/panorama shooting, and the 35mm for a travel camera, maybe even a second body for event shooting with the 70-200 on my primary camera. Or another decent crop camera with a 10-20. Keeping a 1ds2 just for wide angle shooting seems like a lot of camera for a purpose where there isn't even a fantastic lens to warrant it


I just bought a heandmade leather bag for £400, and I just saw it and knew I wanted it, no reviews, no MTF curves (maybe had I read 10000 reviews I would have been put off...) and I knew I would love it for the rest of my life, a perfect product- no camera lens is giving me that same feeling of covetability or completeness, maybe the new zeiss 15mm- so I better not read any reviews on that one!

another crazy option is that my 14mm is a nikon mount adapted, and 10mp isn't enough to crop in post- but if I had a 40mp d800 I could crop the images by a crazy amount and still have the same 10mp files i'm used to working with

i'm very happy with 10mp files for printing up to 20x30" so i'm not a megapixel freak at all, I think the difference at a reasonable distance (and by that I mean a proportional distance away, not using a freaking loupe to inspect your prints) and then cropping in would give me a 'zoom' from 14-24 with a very sharp lens- maybe a sharper end result (and by end result I mean 20x30 or 45x30" print) than shooting a soft zoom lens?

so what do you think guys- am I discrediting the 17-40/16-35 based on some bullcrap tests, or will I be genuinely dissappointed with those lenses on full frame
 
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If you are concerned and don't want to shoot at f/16, then 17-40 is not for you. 16-35 II is by all accounts better, and should really shine on 1DIII. 24-70mm are even better, depending on the flavour and alignment of the copy.
 
If you are concerned and don't want to shoot at f/16, then 17-40 is not for you. 16-35 II is by all accounts better, and should really shine on 1DIII. 24-70mm are even better, depending on the flavour and alignment of the copy.


I did shoot the 17-40 in store once, against the 15-30 sigma- and the sigma was utterly awful compared to the 17-40- I don't have the pictures anymore but I remember being stunned by the difference, although not stunned by the lens in general

I think it has to be the 16-35, 10% difference in image quality with prime lenses looses out to convienience of zooms

ridiculosuly annoying that the 16-35 takes 82mm filters though, I have an investment in 77mm filters :bang:
 
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