Wide Angle Camera Lens info

[twelly27]

Hi everyone

Im looking for a affordable wide angle camera lens for a canon 600D.

I have seen a few suggestions on other websites suggesting then Samyang 14mm F2.8, everybody who suggests it says its amazing value for money.

But im rubbish with the tech side of lenses etc so if people could suggest some lens or point me in the direction of someone who can suggest some that would be great.

if possible id like to stay below £350 i could maybe go to £400. im not after something massively expensive i dont really have the time or the weather to get the best use out of it. 

Any help or info would be lovely thanks very much!

Chris 

[mikehab]

Would this be just for astro widefield use, or would you want something that you can use for 'normal' every-day use too?  If you're only planning on using it for astro use then you don't need a modern lens with auto-focus - so you could look for an olde manual focus prime lens on flea-bay and maybe pick up an excellent quality lens at a bargain...

Mike

[hobsey]

I can recommend the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8.

Fantastic lens and you can get one for the price you are asking for if you don't mind buying what they call a grey import but a lot of places offer a uk warranty with it.

I have no problems with buying imports as most things are imported anyway.

[ollypenrice]

Is this for astro? If so, quite honestly, I'd suggest you take a more moderate FL like the Nifty Fifty and do mosaics.

But it depends on your objectives (no joke intended!)

Olly

[twelly27]

Would this be just for astro widefield use, or would you want something that you can use for 'normal' every-day use too?  If you're only planning on using it for astro use then you don't need a modern lens with auto-focus - so you could look for an olde manual focus prime lens on flea-bay and maybe pick up an excellent quality lens at a bargain...

Mike

99% of the time it would be for astro use, wide field stuff, ISS passes, star trails and time lapes etc, 

[twelly27]

Would this be just for astro widefield use, or would you want something that you can use for 'normal' every-day use too?  If you're only planning on using it for astro use then you don't need a modern lens with auto-focus - so you could look for an olde manual focus prime lens on flea-bay and maybe pick up an excellent quality lens at a bargain...

Mike

Ive decided that i only want a manual focus lens really, i have in the past left it on auto when ive been ready to take the pictures i want only for the moment to pass as ive had to quickly swap to manual and refocus 

[hobsey]

If its 99% of the time astro, forget what I said as its also a great normal photography lens.

You can buy a lot cheaper for your needs.

[twelly27]

I think i missed off the opening post that if i can id like to stay away from a lens that distorts the image im not a fan of lens that end up bending what you take a picture of 

[astolpho]

I own the Rokinon (Samyang) 14mm f/2.8 and love it. Incredibly sharp all across with no coma or CA.

I was going to go for the 24 f/1.4 but since I'm in a APS-C chip (T5i/700D) it wasn't gonna be that wide with the 1.6x crop factor.

Trust me, get the Rokinon 14 and you won't be disappointed.

[twelly27]

I've seen a canon 10-18mm f/4-f/5 I think, I know that you pay the money for how fast the lens is. The biggest question is will I notic the difference if I by a lens that has an f/1 as opposed to the f/4 is the difference that noticeable?

[bruno]

Have a read of this it may help you decide what type of lens you need:- http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/LENSES.HTM

[udaiveer]

I havr been doing wide field with a Tamaron 10-24mm f4.5

On my 650D it's about 18mm which is approximately80-90degrees field of view!

Well as u say City Lights will make taking Longer exposures very ddifficult.

I have posted an example on my blog. StaringJaring.

Besr in mind the wider the lens the money exposure time u get before stars begin to trail.

Optical distortion is part of the wide "deal" but I recently figured out how to correct the optical distortions (I used IRIS to get the Three values a1,a3& a5) once u know thesr values u can do affine transformation-Not too sure of the name Affine.

You have to correct the photo-Subs and THEN stack (stacking with correcting the optical distortion will smear all tge stars not in the central part

[udaiveer]

Oh my typos.

Money=more

Stacking without correcting will smear-coma stars away from the center.

[udaiveer]

Here see an example of the distortion of 10mm

http://staringjaring.blogspot.in/2014/07/northern-sky-constellations-nahargarh.html?m=1

[melsky]

Samyang 16mm F2 is superb even at full aperture, it's has a slightly smaller field than the 14mm F2.8 but is a whole stop faster. I use it on my Canon 600D and in crop mode on a Sony A7s.

Mel

[Mick J]

As Mel knows I picked up a Samyand 14mm in the Amazon black Friday sales,  these two show a local brick wall, off the 1100d, first off the camera and after PS has adjusted with a lens profile, it don't take a moment.

 

I am just thinking the distortion is manageable.

[Beulah]

Arrgh, my credit card is twitching.... 

[udaiveer]

@MickJ. I have tried many ways to correct the wide lens optical distortion n PS n other apps dont do a good enough job for Astronomy.

So far the best is to Manually correct via wrap transformation

N then Apply the transformation.

Every Lens/CCD combination with have the same values so u need to do the evaluation only once n later just use the correction Polynomial values.

It's simplest n nearly perfect.

I will try to post a complete workflow soon.

Use IRIS and(or) Maxim DL

First find out the RA n Dec of the center of the image, a Fits header keeps these values as CRVAL1 n CRVAL2

n use the fits file in IRIS valuate Distortion of image in IRIS n u will get 3 values for a second degree polynomial equation that .

[udaiveer]

Typo..

N apply the transformation.

Every lens/ccd.. .

Part comes at the end.

Oops.

[Mick J]

Hi Udaiveer, I downloaded Adobe Lens Profile Downloader and found a profile for the Sanyang with a crop sensor camera, the rest of it I either don't understand or don't want to understand, this is occasional use for me and I am thinking it may be enough, thanks for you help, I am sure someone may find it useful.

[nigelbeaumont]

Much easier to accurately focus for astrophotography on an old manual lense than on a modern autofocus one. I buy them from eBay - £25 to £35 for an M42 threaded one plus £5 for an M42 to EOS adaptor. Good brands I've used are Zeiss Jena or Takumar (NB M42 lenses thread not the same as T thread despite both being 42 mm diameter)

[Willi1972]

I have a Tokina 12 to 24. It's pretty old now, but it's a great, sharp lens. Should be easily within your budget.