bigguytf

Does anyone have experience with using either a 20mm 2.8 or 24mm 2.8 canon lens on a Canon 1.6 camera.
Is it worth getting a wide angle prime lens to use on a crop body or just use a wide angel zoom? I know from experience that usually a prime lens gives you a better capture but with wide angle does it also work out that way?
I have a Canon 10-18 but I was thinking about investing in a 20mm or 24mm 2.8 prime. But if I would not see a significant difference in picture quality it might not be worth the money.
Any thoughts appreciated.

BebuLamar

Wide angle lenses designed for FF are not a good choice for crop bodies because you pay a lot for the wide angle coverage which you don't have.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

Right - the crop body would convert that 20mm into a 32mm, or the 24mm into a 38mm.

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And the 10-18 is awesome. Not 101% perfect acoarst, but still awesome. It’s not high aperture and it’s not a baseball bat. But the OIS is great, it has a secret feature (electronically parfocal), plus it’s sharp and corner shading is minimal.

If you don’t need a wider full aperture, you are all set. If you need a general purpose f/2.8 lens get the pancake. It’s almost the ONLY short EFs prime that Canon made (note past tense).

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Canon makes the EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM specifically for their crop bodies, delivering a field of view close to 35mm and the STM motor for silent (quiet) AF for video.

Prime lenses will tend to have less distortion at wide focal lengths; there's still distortion, just less than the typical zoom at the same focal length. But, since the cropped sensor takes just the center of the frame, the distorted aspects on the edges of the frame do not appear in the image, whether zoom or prime.

Prime lenses will also tend to have faster / wider maximum apertures, maybe giving more low-light opportunities or more artistic blur than a slower IS-enabled lens. The prime may be sharper in image quality at a lower price vs a zoom.

All that said, it will be hard to find a lens that outperforms your excellent EF-S 10-18 IS. Yes, you can beat it with a wider aperture, maybe a lower price, definitely a physically smaller lens. All these attributes may be useful, but absolute image quality is unlikely to be a difference.

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Having just browsed APSC lenses online, I now declare the era of wide angle primes for SLRs has ended. Put on your Indiana Jones hat and go to eBay to pick over the dinosaur bones.

FWIW, I very recently assembled a classic prime trio for FF EOS and that was not so easy. The lenses, all discontinued, kept turning up in Nikon mount but for EOS it was quite the slim pickings.

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Since I do have both parts, the 24 and the SL1, I did give it a moment’s consideration cuz the camera has no IS but the lens would provide that. My sister has 50/1.4 on her Rebel and doesn’t find it unwieldy, but the SL1 is even smaller.

So I’m NOT using my 24 on MY specific APSC EOS, but if you have one of the large bodies and if you would appreciate adding IS, buck up for the 24 as a “wide normal”. But for a real wide angle prime, there’s nothing, and it wouldn’t have had IS anywho.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

There is no prohibition against using a full frame lens of any kind on a crop sensor body. For the last 10 years that I shot my D200/D300, I bought only full frame lenses, so I was all ready to go when I got my D810 about four years ago.

The problem is that the reduced dimensions of the crop sensor just make wide angle harder to accomplish. In 35mm days, focal lengths below 28mm were considered as extreme wide angle...producing the distortion that is unique to those short focal lengths. With a crop sensor, you need focal lengths down around 18mm or shorter to start seeing those effects. It's just more difficult and more expensive to accomplish that. In my experience, the desire to shoot really wide angle shots is one of the best, strongest reasons to move to a full frame camera. For instance, the Nikkor 10-20mm P DX lens is considered very sharp and very serviceable. But it's not very fast, and it's made with plastic in a lot of places where we really prefer not to see plastic in a lens in order to be offered at a reasonable price.

Be sure to try before buying. 20mm really isn't that wide on a DX camera. Pretty much the functional equivalent of a 28mm full frame lens. 24mm is functionally equivalent to a 35mm lens. Either might work fine for you. Just be sure before spending your money.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

I doubt that you would see any improvement over your 10-18 zoom. It is incredibly sharp and is actually a wide angle on your crop body.
The 20 and 24 do not get all that wide.
I have found no fault with my 10-18 as far as sharpness. It rivals L lenses in that area. It is just not as rugged for heavy abuse that L lenses get if they are used for their intended uses.
Explore your 10-18 fully and see how awesome it really is.
Primes are way over rated, require constant changing, need several to match your 10-18 if they even could. Their only plus is that they are a bit faster in aperture.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

I take your point, but with Canon, the highest performance fast or L series lenses are all FF, so if you want a fast wide Canon, that’s the choice.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Not Canon, but Fuji, for one, has an excellent assortment of wide APSC primes, from 14mm up, often in a fast f2.0 and a faster f1.4 version.

Which lenses did you pick for your EOS primes?

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The era that has ended involves SLRs. Fuji has never been short of wide primes.

For EOS FF SLR I wanted Voigtlanders for my classics cuz the auto iris appeals to my refined sense of lazinezz. Actually, all the electronics work but the lenses are always MF, gloriously MF, super smooth with medium speed helicals.

As mentioned this took some hunting cuz I wanted the EOS FF mount. But I wanted that mount cuz it adapts perfectly to Sony and all these lenses were never offered in E-mount: 20/3.5, 40/2.0, and 90/3.5. On a Sony you can actually visually focus the 20/3.5 (try that with an EOS).

Maybe the 40 was made in E-mount, but I wanted the trio all in matching mounts (keeping the adapter on the body).

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Also recently, I hunted own a quintet of IS primes for EOS SLR use. Not easy finding all FLs with IS. Wound up with three brands from 24 to 150mm. I wanted all with IS for my new to me 5D-SR whose 50MP will rat you out if you don’t keep it steady !

Add in the 24 and 90 T/S lenses and thaz ten recently acquired lenses plus one body, all for a dinosaur system.

BebuLamar

OK I know what most people think. But the FF lens is very high performance for FF camera but not good enough for smaller sensor.

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Amen.

Try explaining that around here. All the bozos will deny it, and your supporters will post so much technobabble and math that the bozos will be all the more certain that you and your supporters must be toadally wrong.

I stand with you on this one. But then, I’m just here for the entertainment ....

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Cool. My solution was to buy an (as new) EOS-1N (would have bought a -1V if I had found one) for a whopping $100, and all my EOS lenses for my DSLR work perfectly and auto focus - best of both worlds.