DonIII Loc: Southern California

Thanks Nikon123, I appreciate your input and perspective. Good points!

DonIII Loc: Southern California

Thank you for replying! I appreciate your input.

DonIII Loc: Southern California

Thank you for your reply and your input. I appreciate both. It's good to hear from someone who is shooting with the Sigma to get some perspective.

DonIII Loc: Southern California

Thank you for your reply and input. I appreciate your perspective. Wish I could try both :-)

DonIII Loc: Southern California

Thank you for your reply and input. Seems that most agree with you!

DonIII Loc: Southern California

Thanks! I appreciate hearing from you! Seems most here agree that the Nikon is the best choice.

rlscholl Loc: California

The LenScore site suggests the Sigma 24mm : http://www.lenscore.org/

photoman43

They have both lenses for rent. Good idea to rent them and see which one works best for you.


https://www.lensrentals.com/

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You want to use <Quote Reply> when replying to specific prior posts. Otherwise, your effort to reply lacks context and relevance.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

You do not mention the primary purpose for wanting a 20mm lens, the use could affect your choice.

As an example, if wanted primarily for night sky photography, the control of coma should be a significant factor when comparing makes/models.

smf85 Loc: Freeport, IL

As mentioned by others the Nikon 20mm 1.8 is a professional very high quality lens. I purchased one for my D850’s. It has consistently provided good results.

Burkley Loc: Park City

I own the Nikon 20 1.8. The lens is phenomenal. It is light, quick to focus and sharp. Distortion is minimal. Those features are all that I ask for in a lens. Build quality in a full frame Nikon lens is a given.

Orphoto Loc: Oregon

It is hard to make reccomendations without seeing your work or knowing your preferences. For sheer optical quality i chose the zeiss 21mm f2.8 over the Nikon. My work embraces deliberate precision.

Relying on the 28-300 suggests that you value convenience and do not necessarily need fast glass. Have you considered any of the wide angle zoom possibilities? A small, light and convenient one might be the 2nd version of the 18-35.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Do you actually need a FAST ultra wide lens?

If you are planning to use for landscape, architecture, etc., you'll very likely be stopping the lens down a lot. You may never need f/1.4 or f/1.8.

An f/2.8 or even f/4 lens can be smaller, lighter, less expensive and even may be better corrected, less prone to flare or CA.

On the other hand, if you're out shooting the aurora borealis and doing astrophotography you may need the f/1.8 or f/1.4 aperture for a brighter viewfinder. Or if you're shooting sports or photojournalism, you may need the brighter lens to be able to use a faster aperture to stop movement. What you won't see with a fast ultrawide is strong background blur effects. Yes, there can be some if shooting a very close subject. But it's never a lot.

Will you want to use filters on the lens? If so, the Nikon can use standard screw-in filters, but the Sigma cannot. There are probably special filter holders and oversize filters for the Sigma, but you should look into those before deciding because they are rather bulky and expensive.

Do you need autofocus? With their natural depth of field very wide lenses are usually pretty easy to focus manually and there's the Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 Milvus that you might want to consider. To me the image quality of the Nikon and Sigma look pretty close (https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=1005&Camera=453&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=966&CameraComp=614&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0). But the manual focus Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 Milvus appears to be a tad sharper and have a little less CA than either, at f/2.8 on all three. On the other hand, the Zeiss lens may have a little more distortion than the Nikon. Particularly if planning to shoot architecture, that might be a consideration. Although correction for distortion and CA is pretty easy in post-processing.
When it comes to minimizing flare, which can be a concern with an ultrawide lens, the Nikon appears to do a bit better than the Sigma, but the Zeiss is best of all.

In fact, you may want to consider a lens that's both manual focus and manual aperture, such as the Venus Laowa 20mm f/4 "Zero-D", which supposedly means zero distortion. I couldn't find test shots done with that lens, but the Venus Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D has surprisingly little distortion for an even more extreme design. It also controls flare pretty well, is sharp and has little to no chromatic aberration. The Venus Laowa 20mm f/4 also is a Shift lens, which can be helpful photographing architecture, among other things.

mg1962

Exactly, you spent your money on a Nikon camera, spend the money on a Nikon lens!!