Anyone use the 14 2.8 for weddings?

I've had the 16-35 II for a while now and like it a lot. It's pretty handy to be very wide and still get to a not bad focal length for a spontaneous portrait. That said, I'm at 16mm nearly all the time it's on my camera.

So it leaves me to wondering if I wouldn't rather have the 14mm. That much wider, probably a bit more crisp, smaller and lighter, etc. But I'd want to hang on to the 16-35 because that flexibility is sometimes necessary. This leaves me to choke on the price of the 14.

So . . . anyone else use it for weddings and was it worth it to you? Or should I just continue to just use the 16-35 as my UWA (knowing that I also have the Tokina 10-17 fish in the bag)?

Ive seen a videographer use it, but no one I have shot with have used it. I think the price is a bit prohibitive.

Interesting. I've been thinking about replacing my 16-35L with the14mm as well. Probably not going to do it, but tempting...

I'm at 16mm most of the time with it too (10 when I used the 10-22/crop), but like you said - being able to zoom in to 35mm for a quick portrait at the reception is nice. Plus I don't usually find myself thinking 16 isn't wide enough.

That said, if you go through with it I'd love to see what you do with 14mm at weddings.

snakeman55 wrote in post #13423370
I'm at 16mm most of the time with it too (10 when I used the 10-22/crop), but like you said - being able to zoom in to 35mm for a quick portrait at the reception is nice. Plus I don't usually find myself thinking 16 isn't wide enough.

That said, if you go through with it I'd love to see what you do with 14mm at weddings.

Yup. Agreed. I think the 14L looks like a cool lens to have. I am definitely more at 16mm on my 16-35L than 35mm, but I totally agree about being able to zoom with that lens. That said, I don't really need 16mm that often, so what makes me think I'll even use the 14L?

It's a cool lens, but definitely wayyy too specialized. Maybe useful for 4-5 pages in a book, but definitely not the entire wedding/reception.

I'm really a HEAVY ultra-wide user. But there is quite a big difference between 14mm and 16mm. So even for an UWA whore like me, it was still too wide for me to use in general wedding shooting. 16-17mm is often just right. At 14mm your subjects are either too small in the frame or you gotta get way too close. Perspective distortion is already quite a task to keep under control at 16mm, let alone 14mm.

That's one reason why I never went for the highly regarded Nikon 14-24... aside from the fact that it was too fricken big, heavy, and the weird pylon shape was enough to piss me off. (That stupid lens took up the space of three lenses in my bag.

What about a cheaper alternative like the manual focus Samyang 14mm 2.8?
Rather than fork out for the 14L.

tonedef78 wrote in post #13425025
What about a cheaper alternative like the manual focus Samyang 14mm 2.8?
Rather than fork out for the 14L.

Definitely something I would consider instead of the 14L. I heard the samyang 14 optics are excellent. At 14mm, the DOF is so huge that it's pretty darn easy to manually focus it. You don't have to be precise at all. For receptions, I often pre-focus my 10-22 and leave it there and never change focus for the whole night.

Yeah I had the Rokinon 8mm when I shot crop and it was pretty great. Apparently it's very comparable to the Samyang. I guess they brand these a few different ways. I hadn't realized they had a FF version. I'll definitely be putting thison my list.

I totally agree about the focusing. At that FL you can basically put the focus ring in the middle and forget about it.

I shot these with the 50D/8mm version: one, two, three

I think what makes the 14mm special is the way it corrects for a certain amount of wide angle distortion. That would be an incentive to use it for certain types of shots, even if you intend to crop in a bit tighter in post. I've used it a few times for specific applications - for instance, the interior of a surveillance van that one of my corporate clients built for law enforcement. I probably could have framed the main shot with a 16mm, but the 14mm was still a better choice for that job. That being said, at the time, the lens correction option in PS/LR didn't exist. I'm not sure how great that filter is on a shot with a lot of hard lines and detail yet since I haven't compared.

It's definitely a specialty item, and one I'd probably use once or twice each wedding if I owned one - but $2k+ for a very occasional lens doesn't make business sense for a lot of photographers.

Canon has the new 8-15 that looks like fun.

I have the 14L. I don't use it much at weddings - I'll use it for some room shots and some on the dance floor. Sometimes I'll use it during the ceremony too, but I actually prefer my 17 TSE for that is there is enough light.

Though the IQ is better, the 14L is considerably wider than the 16-35. Typically during the reception I'm using my 24L the most.

I rented it once when I was shooting video. I definitely would not buy it - even if it was half the price - for photo only. I'd check the specs - I don't recall it being much smaller than the 16-35 and I don't think it was lighter. It still felt like a fairly weighty lens.

It's nice that the 14mm has less distortion than the 16-35, but I really think the 16-35 is far more versatile and useful.

14mm on full frame is REALLY wide.

Here's a size comparison. It's definitely considerably smaller than the 16-35 - especially if you're using the hood on the zoom.