Will there be any benefit? 20mm v 24mm?

AgentG

AgentG

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Ryan
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I've been toying with the idea of adding the Canon 20mm F2.8 to my collection, will I notice any benefit of this lens compared to my 24-105 at 24mm? I'm mainly a landscape photographer so the speed of the lens isn't a major selling point and I can always take a few steps back to fit the scene in. I was just wondering if the prime is worth adding for overall quality at that kind of focal length.

Any pics taken with the 20mm would be nice to see.
 
I struggle to see the advantages of f2.8 and slower primes over f2.8 zooms. They're usually smaller and lighter, but other than that.... I struggle.

Personally I went for the Sigma 20mm f1.8 as it seemed to get better reviews than the rather ho-hum and rather old Canon f2.8. The Sigma is sharp enough but not razor so at f1.8 but sharper at f2 and by f2.2 very sharp.
 
The 24-105 is F4, but in landscape photography the F2.8 isn't going to make that much of a difference. Could you post a few pics taken with the Sigma?
 
Thanks Simon,

I'm looking at upgrading the 550d to the 6d, so I'm not sure how wide the 24mm actually is yet haha. I think I may be talking myself out of the 20mm, at least until I upgrade and see how I like the 24-105mm on FF at 24mm.
 
Image quality will be better with the prime. That would be my reason for doing it.
 
ryanyboy said:
Image quality will be better with the prime. That would be my reason for doing it.
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I'm a prime fan myself but I'd have thought you'd be shooting landscape at smaller apertures so zoom and prime should be at their best and honestly, will you notice the extra image quality except when extreme pixel peeping?

A prime may however have less vignetting at f2.8 than your zoom and may well show less distortion but lots of people don't seem to worry so much about these things these days as modern software can usually correct them. It's up to you if these things are an issue or not.

Anyway, I'll stop putting you off now as primes are lovely things :D but personally I wouldn't expect to see a massive difference in image quality between a quite old and rather average f2.8 prime and a decent zoom. The big advantage for primes are IMHO, wider aperture (not the case in this instance if you go for the Canon f2.8,) macro (also not the case here) and other that the fact that a prime is sometimes more compact. Personally though I wouldn't expect a great jump in IQ.

PS. Sold all my Canon gear including the Sigma 20mm f1.8 now.
I don't think that posting an image here will show you too much, maybe folk will be willing to send you a couple of full size JPEG's or better still raw's. You can have a full size JPEG or raw from me if you want.
 
I can't see any reason to go with the prime except for weight/compactness advantage... sharpness is highly unlikely to be significantly different at landscape apertures (F11 - ish), you might get slightly better contrast from the prime but again I'm not sure you'd really notice.. good light makes a much greater difference. I think you could spend your money more effectively elsewhere.. UWA perhaps?

Simon
 
AgentG said:
Thanks Simon,

I'm looking at upgrading the 550d to the 6d, so I'm not sure how wide the 24mm actually is yet haha. I think I may be talking myself out of the 20mm, at least until I upgrade and see how I like the 24-105mm on FF at 24mm.
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Just borrow a 15mm lens and stick it on your crop camera for a representative FOV that the 24mm will give on a full frame camera
 
Hi Ryan, as you know I've just gone FF and have been using a 24-70 as a landscape lens without to much bother so far, so worth waiting and testing for yourself before splashing out. You may not need 2.8 for landscapes but it comes in very useful for star/night/aurora type images.
 
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