Full frame advice!

Auraomega · 4 Jun 2012 at 18:27

A little while ago I was burgled and lost all my camera kit, so I'm in the process of replacing everything, I'm trying to avoid buying the same stuff again and to buy better this time around and skip the stuff I never used

Everything I buy will be Nikon, on the off chance my stuff is found.

I've figured this time I'm going to grab an FX camera (looking at the D3 when the prices start going down), and I'm a bit stumped on what wide lens to go for. I love the effect you get from really wide lenses and used to pair my D300 with a Tokina 11-16, however on FX this lens effectively becomes a prime seeing as I'd have to use at 16mm, not to mention the fact using filters vignettes badly on full frame (or so I've read). I took a look at the 14-24 however without modding filters aren't available and if I'm spending that much I want to be able to use what I want with it.

I've been looking at primes, however the widest prime that it's reasonable to expect to find is the 18mm (the 13mm, while awesome, isn't going to happen), and this is expensive and might not have the wide effect I'm after (I haven't seen any examples to say otherwise).

Then there's the Nikon 16-35, wide, uses filters (and 77mm too, the thread of all my other lenses), however is only f4 (I'm aware that wide doesn't need to be fast, but there are occasions where it helps... however VR would balance it out)?

So here I am, stumped what to do for the best.

Auraomega · 4 Jun 2012 at 20:59

Thanks for the advice.

I do want to use high NDs as I had just started to get into long exposure photography before my kit grew legs and what I saw, I liked very much.

From what I've read the 16-35 is as good optically as the 14-24, however I admit those extra 2mm on the wide end do appeal to me; I noticed on the 11-16 an extra couple of mm makes a huge difference when shooting really wide.

I do (did) weddings on the side and the more rugged, weather sealed body calls out to me, and in all honesty having 2 cards in mirror would put my mind at ease (lose photos once due to corruption, forever paranoid) not to mention the fact I shoot jets a fair bit so the speed is a plus. I had looked at the D700 but it didn't have the dual cards. The D4 is too expensive as is the D3s... I'm having to replace all my kit and the extra grand or so on the D3s could be better spent on a 70-200 2.8 over a couple of stops of ISO.

Auraomega · 4 Jun 2012 at 22:44

Huh, I always shoot raw?

Auraomega · 5 Jun 2012 at 12:14

It's settled then, the 14 24 is the way ahead for me, I can live without the grad on the lens if I can have an ND, I'll just use my 28 70 for landscapes with a grad.

You can use a polariser on really wide lenses but you get an odd banding as the polarising effect only works at near 90 degrees to the light source, on a lens this wide you get a field of view where some areas are polariser, and other areas aren't and it looks a little off in my opinion.

Auraomega · 5 Jun 2012 at 15:33

I personally prefer 'proper' filters (AKA the screw in type) and in the past had all 77mm lenses so could easily get away with it. Drop in filters are great if you have lots of different lenses requiring different filter sizes, Lee is good though, better than Cokin but obviously a bit more expensive too.