More 2.0 lenses please

stoney

I like 2.0 lenses. Fast enough. Good center sharpness. Good enough Bokeh. 1.4 or faster exotic lenses are great but expensive. Also I prefer the perfect round Bokeh shape at max aperture. i.e. I like lenses that perform well at max aperture. Also good 2.0 lens should have good corner sharpness at 4.0 or 5.6 or 8.

But I'm guessing that manufacturers usually wanna expand to 1.4 or faster when they can build excellent 2.0 lenses... and charge more... then expect us stop down... most of the time. Or am I thinking too narrowly?

stoney

FT4 rumor. Oly m.zuikon 12mm 2.0!!! But... prolly... expensive. Arrrr. I'm guessing Oly m.zuiko 50mm to have 2.0 as there is 43 version at 2.0. But it won't be priced at $139 like Canon EF 50mm 1.8. A... lot... more... expensive... Arrrggg!!!

The upcoming lumix 25.4 (leicasonic branded)... gawd... I wished they made it at 2.0. Arrrggg.

Me getting bad heartburn. Those m43 lenses are gonna be... definitely out of reach for a while.

stoney

Please recommend good 2.0 lenses...

agitprop

I got this for my D700 and GH2

http://www.amazon.com/Voigtlander-Aspherical-Compact-Pancake-Digital/dp/B000ZNQUBU

Vitaliy_Kiselev

From that I used and owned (or still own):
Vivitar 28mm F2.0, Vivitar 24mm F2.0, SMC Pentax 50mm F2.0 (this one is very cheap lens).

Other interesting things:
CZ 35mm F2, Nikkor 35mm F1.8

Vitaliy_Kiselev

One more F2 lens

SMC PENTAX-M 85mm F/2

stefanos

does anyone know anything about the voigtlander ultron 28mm f/2 and how it might compare with the samyang 35mm 1.4 at f/2 in terms of sharpness ?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Voigtlander-Ultron-28mm-f-2-Lens-28-f2-Leica-M-/330458416218?pt=UK_Lenses_Filters_Lenses&hash=item4cf0db445a

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Look here - http://photo.net/leica-rangefinders-forum/00WBpg
You must understand that handling of ultron is much worse.
I think that Samyang will be definitely sharper.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

You can look at this also:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Soligor-C-D-28mm-F-2-P-f-Konica-SLRs-AR-Mount-/380333899024?pt=DE_Foto_Camcorder_Objektive&hash=item588daabd10

I am big fan of Soligor C/D lenses.
They are of very high quality and normally sell for much less compared to Vivitar Series 1.

stoney

Thanks to you. I got Vivitar FD 28mm F2.0 Close-Focus last year. Nobody sells it anymore.

This beat-up lens has good center sharpness at wide open and close range. But its corner sharpness is supposedly sucks. Luckily m43 sensor gets only the good juicy center part.

Like many legacy lenses it suffered from ugly flare, but I can't ask for more at $100 I paid.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

>I got Vivitar FD 28mm F2.0 Close-Focus last year. Nobody sells it anymore.

Do you have Komine (28x) or Kiron made lens?

stoney

I should've gotten Nikkor 50mm 1.8 Ai-s instead of 1.4 Ai-s. It's cheaper and sharper. Not exactly at 2.0, but it's close enough.

stoney

Konica Hexanon AR 40mm 1.8 is very good at 2.8. The only issue that... it jumps from 1.8 to 2.8.

Sage

Couldn't agree more.
F2 max aperture performance for circular bokeh, sufficient natural light, and controllable focus.
So right on.
Just got a nikon 24 f2

Tesselator

For longer ones both the Nikkor and Canon 200mm F/2.0 are really good!

VK's Pentax 85/2 recommendation is very good! I'll add both the Super-Multi-Coated TAKUMAR 85/1.8 and the Super TAKUMAR 85mm/1.9 to those as well! The 85/1.9 when you can find them are pretty special lenses - Very nice character!

stoney

Nice. The shopping list is getting longer. :)

stoney

> Do you have Komine (28x) or Kiron made lens?

I have Vivitar Komine same as yours. It's no longer available in ebay. Every time I tried to sell it on Craigslist, I got many calls. After realizing the power of 2.0, I decided to keep it.

stoney

taken w/ nikkor 85mm 2.0 ai. then cropped. then color grading. still looking sharp. love 2.0! but i'm thinking to sell it and get another one. pentax 85/2, takumar 85.8, or hexanon 85.8

bitcrusher

Canon 24mm FD F/2, great lens-

Then there is the Contax G Zeiss Planar 45mm F/2 - killer glass!

agitprop

Nikkor 28/2 AIS taken with a GH2 - my current fave

Vitaliy_Kiselev

One of the problems with GHx cameras is that you need to remember 2x multiplier with this old full frame lenses. :-)
This makes 35mm, 40mm and 50mm very similar lenses.
So, you can be pretty ok using 28mm, 50mm, 85mm and 200mm set.
Even wide 20mm becomes normal lense.
So, you really need lenses in 10mm-20mm interval.
And, except 14mm pancake (and big 14mm Samyang), is mostly F2.8 and slower zooms.

Alex

I own the Leitz Canada R 90 mm f2. Got it two years ago from ebay. It becomes considerably softer at f2 but this happens on a Leica level, so nothing to worry about. Built quality is superb, bokeh a dream!

I also use Contax lenses like the before mentioned 45 mm f2. Those lenses have a plastic protector that protects the rear element. You need to cut those off in order to fit the adapter to the lens. If you open a few screws and remove the protector that way, it de-clicks the aperture because the plastic piece is holding against a spring used for the click mechanism. You have to cut the electronic connection to the lenses inside though ... I did it with the 28 mm Contax.

stoney

> One of the problems with GHx cameras is that you need to remember 2x multiplier with this old full frame lenses. :-)

Doesn't it apply to all cropped systems? If I really need a fast wide angle, I'd get a FF body.

I think wide angle is more useful in photo when panorama isn't an option. A single frame gotta capture a story. Having wider FOV definitely helps in that case. Good corner sharpness becomes important. Definitely careless about DOF from wide angle...

Video can have panning over many frames to capture a story. I guess wide angle in video is more issue to cinematographers.

I wanna use wide angle lens to capture indoor event... hundreds of people. Preferably 2.0 due to not so ideal indoor lighting. I heard lumix 14/2.5 is soft at 2.5. The upcoming m.zuiko 12/2.0... zero hope in getting good corner sharpness at 2.0. It would have to be big like Nikkor 85mm 1.4 Ai-s. Huge glass and high precision.

Prolly I will get 7-14/4.0 and raise ISO. Better to get noisy detail than no detail. Hopefully Panasonic improves S/N of future sensors.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

>Doesn't it apply to all cropped systems? If I really need a fast wide angle, I'd get a FF body

APS-C multiplier is smaller (1.5x or 1.6x for Canon). And you have much more options for wide lenses or zooms.
Even Samyang 14mm is really valuable on APS-C, but on GH2 it is not so useful.
You can also get many wide zooms (starting from most popular Tokina 11-16mm).
On GH2 you are really restricted with 7-14mm and Olympus zooms if you want to go really wide.
But even them can not compete with Sigma 8-16mm, for example.

While you can pan, for many locations or for artistic reasons you must use wides.

stoney

Why not use Tokina 11-16 w/ Nikon adapter on GH2? How about LA7200 1.33x anamorphic lens?

GH2 has 1.85x crop factor at 1:1.6 ratio where Canon 550D has 1.75x crop factor at 1:1.6. That's like only 6% difference in FOV from a same lens.

Believe me. The wide angle issue haunted me for months. Now it's not a big deal anymore. BTW we need a new topic for this.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

I did not mean video only here :-)
Wide lens, at least for me, is very useful not only for video.

>Tokina 11-16mm

I tried this lens few times. It is good.
But. It is not available in Pentax mount version (due to agreement between Pentax and Tokina :-) ).
And I do not want to have both 12-24mm and 11-16mm in non-Pentax mount (as I tend to use first much more in video).
So, for me, best bet seems to be Sigma, either one of 10-20mm versions or 8-16mm.

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