Sometimes wide is just never wide enough. My friends at Adorama gave me a new wide angle lens to try. It is a new 14mm wide angle lens with an f/2.8 aperture in their Pro-Optics line. It is also a bargain at $385 and available in Canon, Nikon and Olympus 4/3 mounts. When you have a BIG subject like a Macy’s balloon at night, that extra-wide view at an f/2.8 is important. After working with the lens last night on my Canon 7D, I had the following impressions:
Pros
- Very sharp from edge to edge even at f/2.8
- Very little barrel distortion
- Very little chroma aberration
- Extra-wide 14mm with a f/2.8
- Works on both APS-C senors and full-frame sensors
- Only $385
Cons
- Full Manual – Manual focusing, manual aperture
- NO AF Confirm makes it tough to focus
- No electronic contacts in lens so EXIF is not recorded (ex. lens mm and f-stop)
This is a very “Old School” lens with real manual controls on the lens barrel. With no AF Confirm, I did find it hard to focus the lens. Since my subjects were so large and not moving, I just left the lens set to Infinity and concentrated on the subjects. The lens is incredible sharp. Just take a look at the detail in the fine netting holding the balloons down. The lens also showed very little barrel distortion and very little chroma aberration. Both problems are very common with extra wide angles. I could see this lens being very useful in landscape photography. With the shot of the Engerizer Bunny balloon, I was just to close to get the whole balloon with my 17-55mm lens. But, this 14mm gave my the extra range that I needed to fit the entire balloon.
For some reason, there are very few extra-wide angle lens with a constant f/2.8. This inexpensive 14mm lens from Adorama will certainly come in handy. And, at only $385, the price is right!
