Wide angle prime lens (Nikon)

[Auraomega]

I'm trying (in vain) to decide on what lens to get next... I've narrowed it down to a wide angle, yay!

I want something wide for landscapes and to carry on my typical UWA style photos, it must be small physically as it's a throw in in my work bag along with my mini tripod, 85 1.8 and D3, it must also take filters, I have 77mm filters, but a step up ring would suffice if needs be. Manual focus isn't an issue as I will most likely just hyperfocal for landscapes and if I'm playing with perspective then it'll be a static object so manual is fine.

I've got my eyes on the 18mm 3.5, 20mm 2.8 and the 24mm 2.8. The 18mm is winning because it's the widest and means I have a UWA to use when the 24-70 isn't doing it for me, however I want to know if there is something else I should be looking at?

No Sigma, Tamron or other such third party brands, I'd only consider Nikon or a reasonably priced Zeiss or Voigtlander.

 

[Auraomega]

Definitely not interested in (from what I hear) the excellent Nikon 14-24mm F2.8 ?

it must be small physically

...

I'll keep an eye out for the Zeiss 21mm then along with the 24mm, at this rate my bag is going to be full of primes and nothing else!

EDIT:
That 15mm is an impressive looking beast!

 

[Auraomega]

I'd highly recommend looking at this comparison with the Nikon 14-24mm and the Samyang 14mm.

it must be small physically as it's a throw in in my work bag along with my mini tripod, 85 1.8 and D3, it must also take filters

I've played with most of the newer lenses out there working in a camera shop, the 14-24 is amazing but too big and heavy to put in my bag on the off chance, likewise it doesn't take filters. The Samyang has odd distortion in the centre which is the most important part of the image and it isn't really that small and again won't take real filters.

My favourite lens to date was the 12-24mm Sigma because at 12mm you can get some really interesting perspectives (as shown in my photo in the first post) but the colour rendition isn't up to Nikkor standards and it suffers from pretty bad coma, epic softness in the corners, big and heavy and won't take the all important filter.

 

[Auraomega]

It's surprising that the 14mm prime is worse than the 14mm zoom, but somehow Nikon managed to do it! It's still pretty big though, certainly not 'small' and any sensible person would opt for the 14-24 all things considered.

 

[Auraomega]

I'm aware of the Lee Filters, but that makes a big bulky lens even bigger and it was too big for my needs in the first place.

One of our other stores has an 18mm 3.5 which I'll be testing, I might just go with that, or grab the 20mm 2.8 for something small and the 17-35 for something filtered (but also metal, so no 16-35).

 

[Auraomega]

90% of the reviews I read praise the 18mm and it still holds it's value, impressive considering it's a full manual lens, surely that says something?

 

[Auraomega]

None of my lenses have a protective filter and I've never needed one (plus try finding a 105mm UV filter for a reasonable price)!

The element isn't as exposed as it looks anyway, and unless you're swinging it around you can't really hit it on anything to damage it. Scratches, besides being incredibly hard to do in the first place, don't show up on photos anyway and won't cause any noticeable loss of quality; one of my old lenses hand a lovely deep scratch running down the front element but worked flawlessly.