Using your wide-angle lenses only at the "Wide Angle?"

The title sounds pretty funny and some might even say "duh," but I was wondering for those of you who has a nice UWA zoom lens, do you find yourself mostly utilizing the widest focal lengths?

For others, are your UWA primes a bit more "unique" than the zooms?

Of course, it all depends on what you shoot, I understand that. I've been going back and forth between buying a nice UWA zoom, specifically the 17-40L or Tokina 16-28, and a really nice prime, such as the Samyang 14mm; or even spend a little more on a 24mm TS-E.

I'm planning to get a good 24-70mm, so I was wondering if a UWA zoom would be under-utilized at its long end. After all, I think I can just do a panorama and stitch it together in post processing.

Are UWA zooms not as versatile as a good standard or telephoto zoom?

With UWA location determines how wide I go. If I am close with a wide area I want then I go as wide as the lens goes. If I am farther back then I adjust towards the "lomg" end.

UWA introduce a lot of distortion, think almost fisheye. i don't shoot landscape at the widest focal length because unless you have a focal point in the foreground, the image tends to be uninteresting.

i use mine at its widest end to purposely introduce distortion, since objects close to the lens are greatly magnified and those further back get smaller so you get a very drastic look. its fun to play with.

mike_311 wrote in post #16050182
UWA introduce a lot of distortion, think almost fisheye. i don't shoot landscape at the widest focal length because unless you have a focal point in the foreground, the image tends to be uninteresting.

i use mine at its widest end to purposely introduce distortion, since objects close to the lens are greatly magnified and those further back get smaller so you get a very drastic look. its fun to play with.

Most PP programs fix this reasonably well. If you have straight lines at the edges they still show distortion though.

mike_311 wrote in post #16050182
UWA introduce a lot of distortion, think almost fisheye.

It's probably best not to generalize. The EF 16-35L II has hugely less distortion at 24mm than the EF 24-105L. The 16-35 actually has less distortion at 16mm than the 24-105L does at 24mm.

Yup, as soon as someone starts thinking 'I need ultra wide so I can get a sweeping view of everything' they are usually headed for a boring shot.

That's fine, but calling it distortion is probably confusing. Not to be overly pedantic, but the phenomenon you describe is related to the perspective of having the camera very close to the foreground object. Some people call this 'perspective distortion' which is fine, but you should probably be careful not to drop the 'perspective' part. Otherwise folks will start to think you are talking about lens distortion which is related to the design.

In general, 'distortion' is a physical characteristic of the lens itself that describes how much the lens will distort a straight line and render it curved. If you ever shoot a picture of the ocean with a lens that has a lot of distortion, you will generally see it as a curved horizon.

to help clarify my "perspective" distortion comments:

One of the things I like about the 17-40L is its extended range. It allows me to leave the 24-105L at home sometimes, which means I will use the lens throughout its focal range.

And I completely agree about including interesting foreground elements in a UWA landscape shot. Without such elements, UWA landscapes are quite often boring.

I used to love the 17-40 and 16-35 II until the 17 TS and 24 TS II came out. If you want sharper corners and the ability to tilt and shift, I would go with those recommendations.

mike_311 wrote in post #16050182
UWA introduce a lot of distortion, think almost fisheye. i don't shoot landscape at the widest focal length because unless you have a focal point in the foreground, the image tends to be uninteresting.

i use mine at its widest end to purposely introduce distortion, since objects close to the lens are greatly magnified and those further back get smaller so you get a very drastic look. its fun to play with.

Distortion isn't too big of a concern for me since, like others have said, can be easily fixed in PP.

But the idea of drastically changing the compression & field of view seems pretty unique.

jdizzle wrote in post #16051291
I used to love the 17-40 and 16-35 II until the 17 TS and 24 TS II came out. If you want sharper corners and the ability to tilt and shift, I would go with those recommendations.

Do you find yourself taking a much longer time setting up the shots with your TS lenses than zooms? I'd love to get a TS-E, but if it really requires careful prep. and I can't travel & shoot with it easily, I'm not sure if it'll be practical.

XxDJCyberLoverxX wrote in post #16051356
Distortion isn't too big of a concern for me since, like others have said, can be easily fixed in PP.

But the idea of drastically changing the compression & field of view seems pretty unique.

Do you find yourself taking a much longer time setting up the shots with your TS lenses than zooms? I'd love to get a TS-E, but if it really requires careful prep. and I can't travel & shoot with it easily, I'm not sure if it'll be practical.

I've done a ton of shots handheld without a tripod. It's easy once you get past the learning curve. For landscape on a tripod I take my time for composition.

Handheld shots with the 17 TS.

A 17mm or 24mm TS-E is on my long-term wish list.

you can easily handhold a UWA, i can show you shot i took inside on a cruise with a 10-22 at 1/20 and 1/10

you just dont get the camera shake at those wide angles. like it has been stated and you can see above in the second shot shoot wide makes an uninteresting picture, see how there is nothing in the foreground and the wood deck just seems to go on forever, but the first is much better since the pool is there?

you dont have to shoot at the widest length and you dont want to always, but its there when the situation calls for it.

I tend to use my 17-40 at the wide end, but that is mostly because I have better options at longer focal lengths and I have not (yet) managed to justify the expense of improving my lineup at 17mm. It is essentially a 17mm f/11 lens except when I am traveling light, in which case it becomes a zoom lens again.

I'm always using UWA lenses at it's widest angle. It's funny, because i really hate that effect.

I've sold my 17-40 for 24 ts-e and i'm really happy - 24 is wide enough for 90% situations, and for these other we can always make a pano with effective focal length around 14mm.

An ultra wide prime wouldnt appeal to me much. What I like about the ultrawide zoom is the ability to drastically change the perspective of a scene while maintaining the same framing. With a prime, you are stuck with one tool. Given that the other benefits of a prime (fast aperture for shallower DOF) dont apply to most ultrawide imagery the only other real reason for the prime is sharpness.