A good wide angle needed for concerts

ThornleyGroves · Jul 27, 2012

Hi guys, basically I am going to be photographing The Warehouse Project in Manchester which is a huge dj/artist showcase most weekends up until Christmas.

Im going to be taking my d800 with my 50mm and 70-200mm lenses, but I really want a good wide angle lens to take. Obviously I want it full frame, probably second hand and wouldn't mind a sigma or tamron lens! It'll obviously need to be quite fast as the light will be rather dark in the venue, and would need to be wide enough to get some good dj deck shots! My budget is Up to around 450gbp. I've looked at the 10-20mm f3.5 but wanted to weigh up some other options.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Tom

Big Mike · Jul 27, 2012

Be aware than most lenses you will see, in the 10-20mm range, are not full frame.
On a full frame camera, 17mm is really, really wide. Any wider and you're pretty much looking at fish-eye lenses (or a whole lot of distortion).

fjrabon · Jul 27, 2012

Yeah, 10-20mm is way too wide for full frame unless you just want lens distortion. It's basically only usable on a full frame for about 15-20mm. You could obviously use it in the D800's DX mode, but that kinda defeats the purpose. Especially since true FX UWA's are typically faster anyway.

If I were you, I'd simply rent. The Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 is known as the UWA concert beast amongst zooms. The 24mm f/1.8 prime is also awesome for full frame concert photography.