We all dream of a premium quality lens that is suitable for every situation (maybe a pancake 14-400mm f/2.8), but of course this is not exactly realistic. My dream, however, is infinitely more reasonable and completely feasible, yet despite this, no lens manufacturer will ever create it.
More than 15 years ago when I started learning about photography by shooting parkour, my gear was an entry-level Canon on black and white film with a kit lens. Very quickly I realized that 28mm wasn't wide enough and tried to figure out a way of shooting wider but without spending what then seemed to be an insane amount of money. I was a student and photography was a hobby, so my first acquisition was a fisheye converter, a cheap chunk of glass bought on eBay that screwed onto my kit lens. This blurry, clunky piece of tat was a bit of a game changer. The images were rubbish but suddenly I saw the world in wide angle.
Early 2004, when I knew nothing about photography, and the world knew nothing about parkour.
Since then, my Canon 6D spends most of its time with my beloved Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 attached. I love the geometry of this lens, its sharpness, its ability to cope when I point it straight into the sun, and the speed and reliability of its autofocus. However, its size is a problem, and if I choose to upgrade to the Mark III, this only gets worse, jumping from 1.4 pounds (635 grams) to 1.74 pounds (790 grams). As a nomadic minimalist, I feel every single ounce.
I've written before about my love of Canon's 40mm pancake and this led me to wonder if I could find something smaller for those trips where I know I'm not going to be shooting that much but can't face a week away without something wide in my bag. My beloved 16-35mm is not ideal, especially when I considered that it's very rare that I shoot with an aperture larger than f/4.0. As a result, I've started to question whether lugging my lump of a lens around is always justified. Maybe I could find a prime that would keep me happy.
The 16-35mm is incredible but, as with any ultra-wide lens, you've got to be careful what you put at the edges of the frame. Fingers become elongated, heads become alien, and ladies with the slimmest of shoulders can quickly look like they've been in the gym, albeit only working one side. To account for this, I often find myself shooting between 18 and 21mm, despite the 16mm that I have available.
Amie (left) has not been injecting steroids into her right arm. And nor are her hands different sizes. Unable to move any further backwards, I had little choice but to shoot at 16mm, and I paid the price for it.
With this in mind, I started hunting for a walk-around 20mm prime that would be a bonus addition to my gear, and get thrown with my 40mm pancake in for short trips where weight and space is at a premium. Three other considerations: I need autofocus as I enjoy street photography; I don't need anything faster than f/4.0; and this is a supplementary lens that will get caked in climbing chalk and thrown in a bag with other stuff, so the price has to be relatively low.
Sounds straightforward, right? Not quite. Canon's 20mm prime is f/2.8 and hasn't been updated since — and this is slightly amazing — 1992, the year it was launched. It's barely an inch and a half shorter than my 16-35mm and hardly compact, and I wonder if an f/4.0 version (were it to exist) would be a little smaller. I was excited to see Sigma releasing their new range of Art lenses a few years ago, but their 20mm is f/1.4 and, let's not forget, this lens weighs an incredible 2 pounds (950 grams).
So I wait to see if Yongnuo or Samyang will add to their selection of affordable primes (I'm about to splash out on the Yongnuo 50mm f/1.8 II). Guys, if you're reading, help me out! Maybe until then I need to stop being sniffy about the bulk and best before date on Canon's own 20mm prime and pick one up second hand — it's certainly been around long enough that there's more than a few knocking about on eBay.
All of this leads me to ask a question of the community: which lenses don't exist that really should? Leave your thoughts in the comments, please.
Love the 28mm, haven't tried it with the Ultra-Wide Conversion yet.
Samyang make a 20mm f1.8 with Canon EF mount.
Olympus has the very nice 9-18 mm (which I own) and the 12mm f2.0 (which I do not). Both fit your bill: they are literally pocketable, are wider than 28mm (which I agree is too narrow, my reason to get the 9-18 in the first place), and are very very light.
Like you I am a nomadic photographer, and I am very happy with the pocket-size of most MFT gear. You cannot beat it with a Canon, although - of course - you pay the price in less MPs and less quality at high ISO. Things I can live with.
P.S.: I brought my Olympus and the 9-18 on top of Kilimanjaro without strain. It is *that* pocketable.
Yeah, switching systems is definitely a more realistic option than my imaginary lens! Trying hard not to get to that point, though...! 😂
Nikon makes a 20mm 2.8 that weight half a pound. And a 1.8 that only weighs 3/4 of a pound.
Nikon 20mm f/1.8 is only 357g and absolutely incredible. I take it anywhere I cannot lug the awesome yet heavy Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8...
Clearly as a Canon shooter, these won’t help you, but they are in the range you are looking for - Nikon’s 20mm f/1.8 is great, and so is the Olympus 12mm f/2.0 (I really like this one, very small). The Fuji system has the Zeiss 12mm f/2.8, which is decent but I find the aperture ring is turned too easily and I am often ending up on the wrong setting as a result. Worth renting something to try these lenses.
As for a lens that doesn’t exist - something that stretches the boundaries of the congenital 24-70 f/2.8 - either give me a faster aperture (like f/1.8) or give me more range on both ends. Only so many revisions of the same lens I can buy over and over.
Good question!
Ahh, the Canon 20mm. One of the saddest examples of just how little Canon cares about its non-L semi-affordable shoppers. If only you were a Nikon/Sony shooter!
Legacy lens? I just picked up a like new Nikkor 180 f2.8 for $140 and use it on my MFT in aperture mode. The only down side, weight - sometimes I feel as if I am using an old Nikon with a motor drive,
And what about the photographer that should exist but never will?
just buy this https://www.photografix-magazin.de/nikon-p1000-vorgestellt/
I would personally loved to see pro version of Nikkor 24-120 f/4. I switch to 24-70 f/2.8E VR not because aperture, but thing like weather sealing, faster AF and optics are less likely to shift when you bump something with a hood. Of course this lens should have good image quality wide open on long end which todays 24-120 isn't.
I've owned quite a few wide angle zooms over the years including the canon 10-18, sigma 8-16, and then when I moved to full frame I picked up a Tamron 15-30 2.8 VC which was great but it was massive. I too wanted to shed some weight and started looking at different options. I was never blown away by the 16-35 f2.8 ii and I didn't want to spend the money if I didn't have too so after a ton of research I decided to go with the 17-40 F4L. Its the smallest, lightest, rectilinear L-series zoom that canon makes. Its cheap, its tack sharp, its small enough, and because I don't really need a fast wide angle, the f4 doesn't bother me. I've had it for about a year now and I still love it.
As far as dream lens goes, I used to own the Sigma 18-35 f1.8 and it was one of my favorite lenses ever. Instead of making the 24-35 f2 they made for full frame, I wish they made a 24-50 f2. That would be a MUCH more useable lens. A 24-105 f2.8 IS or a 70-300 f2.8 IS would also be super nice :)
Hey Stanley, thanks for your thoughts. Having now owned two 16-35 f/2.8s (mark i and ii), I'm now wondering why I didn't opt for an f/4 - and the 17-40 is noticeably lighter than the 16-35, it would seem..! And then, of course, the price. Hmm...!
Thinking more about it, my dream lenses would be Sigma 18-35 and 50-100 lenses second edition that resolve all the focus issues. Then I would I would move to a D500 (or its successor) and be set for 99% of my shoots with two fast lenses.
Switch to Sony a6000 series and either buy the smallish 10-18mm zoom or the 16 and 20mm pancake lenses with wide angle converters. Done.
Silly shit. We have an athlete complaining that the lens he loves is too heavy. WTF?
Somehow I doubt it has anything to with him not being able to wield a heavier lens and more to do with form factor and portability...
Yeah, this is more a concern that comes about as a result of being a regular passenger with RyanAir... 😂
Andy Day if you take Nikon into consideration here is something to blow your socks off:
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/AFNi...
Aha. Interesting. Thank you! :)
Realistically a 24-105 f/2.8
Unrealistically a 16-135 f/1.2 ;)
I want "Tilt/Shift" to be a camera setting. (Not joking)
Voightlander have a 20mm almost pancake canon fit lens. Something like a cooler skopje 20mm f3.5. Its manual focus, but really easy to focus at that focal length and has the AF confirm beep.
Yeah, a few people have mentioned this, and maybe it's the way to go. It would be my first EVER manual focus lens... 😂
As long as it has the AF beep thing, its probably going to be better than AF for street work.
This guy should be switching over to sony
How about a 17-70 F3.5 to 4.5 full frame. Much easier to design and manufacture but it won't be made either.
Sony makes an 28mm F2 with a small adapter to make it 21mm f2.8 full frame or 16mm f4. If you're ok with adapters it would suit your needs. Just have to jump on the mirrorless bandwagon like i did.
A 24-70mm F2.8 IS with a fixed barrel length so it doesn't extend when you change focal lengths.
Andy, the nearest I know of is the IRIX 15mm f/2.4 Firefly Lens for Canon EF (Dimensions (DxL) Approx. 4.49 x 3.94" / 114 x 100 mm - weight, 1.3 lbs) - but of course it's not auto focus.
What you need is an autofocus Canon-mount version of this lens: https://kenrockwell.com/voigtlander/20mm-f35.htm
Unrealistically...10mm-200mm at least 2.8 :P
I love my Sigma Art 18-35mm 1.8, close second is my recently acquired Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 (I also have a Nikkor 50mm 1.8, and a Nikkor 70-200mm f4)
I had a 70-200mm, but it was not very useful because the range is so narrow ..... it's not even a 3x zoom. So I sold it, because at <3x, I seldom found it to be able to frame things the way I wanted to.
So now I carry two bodies around, one with a 24-105 and the other with a 100-400, even though I don't really need anything wider than 40mm and I don't need anything longer than 300mm. This is cumbersome, and the awkwardness of two bodies causes me to miss shots, even though I have the focal lengths that I need. A 50-200mm would give me most of the range I need in a very efficient form factor.
Canon used to make a 50-200mm back in the 1980s. I bought one, and find its range much more useful than the 70-200. Yes, that extra 20mm at the short end really does make an enormous difference in being able to capture more of the images that I want to make whilst afield.
The image quality - in terms of sharpness and resolving ability - is quite excellent. BUT, it is somewhat slow at f4.5, and the autofocus, well, you can imagine how slow and "clunky" 1988 autofocus tech was. This slow AF means that it is not useful for moving wildlife, which is mostly what I like to shoot with a lens in this focal length range.
I wonder why Canon, or a third party manufacturer, doesn't make a modern 50-200mm in an f4 or f3.5 aperture. The stellar image quality on the old one tells me that optically, such a lens is very feasible. It would be SO MUCH more useful than a 70-200mm lens. I suspect that the only reason no one is making this is because they fear that it would hurt sales of other lenses. It's sad when profits come before meeting the customers needs most efficiently ..... sad, but nonetheless a reality.
A pro-level 50-200mm f3.5 with modern autofocus and image stabilization. That'd be well worth $1300 to me.
It’s quite possible you won’t see such a lens for a Canon DSLR. On the plus side, I do believe manufacturers have finally explored enough of the “can we do it” super high quality, large aperture yet gargantuan lenses and are moving back towards practical designs. Nikon’s Z system supposedly has a pancake or two in the works. Tamron’s latest trio (the 20/2.8, 24/2.8, and 35 was it?) are AF, small, and sharp. But they’re only for Sony E. And then there’s Fuji’s whole X system. I imagine most of the new lenses innovation is happening around the mirrorless systems so if you’re super dedicated to your Canon DSLR, you may be stuck with what’s already around.
Pentax 20-40 f2.8-4.0 is compact, robust, has weather sealing and only weighs 283g.
Partner it with a body that's much more compact than your 6d and give got yourself a nice portable package.