Is it silly to own both 20mm and 24mm on FX?

shadowlands · Jul 8, 2016

Thanks everyone for taking the time. I'll have a chance to play with the 20mm in New Mexico soon. Looking forward to it.

nerwin · Jul 10, 2016

As far as I'm concerned...that 4mm difference is pretty huge on full frame.

Nothing wrong in having a 20mm prime and a 24-70, in fact they are different lenses for different purposes.

shadowlands · Jul 13, 2016

My wife will not let me part with it anyway. She's even read the reviews and says she wants it for the sun stars. Ha! For real.

astroNikon · Jul 13, 2016

shadowlands said:
My wife will not let me part with it anyway. She's even read the reviews and says she wants it for the sun stars. Ha! For real.

you do know that a d5 gives better sun stars with any lense!!

shadowlands · Jul 13, 2016

astroNikon said:
shadowlands said:

My wife will not let me part with it anyway. She's even read the reviews and says she wants it for the sun stars. Ha! For real.

Click to expand...

you do know that a d5 gives better sun stars with any lense!!

I'll likely never know. She fell for it with the glass, but if I bought a D5, it would be azz!!!

Solarflare · Jul 19, 2016

shadowlands said:
OK, so I own the Nikon 24-70 2.8. I recently landed a pretty good deal on a Nikon 20mm 1.8G.
Is it worth it, on FX, to swap down to the 20mm 1.8G over the already mounted 24-70 2.8, for extra width, etc, when needed? Landscapes, interior rooms, etc...
Or do you think the difference between 20mm and 24mm isn't worth the $600.00 I spent on the 20mm prime?

Owning a 20mm and a 24mm prime would be kind of redundant. Its OK to own both, but I would very strongly recomment only taking one of them with you at any time. Probably the 20mm because you can get from there to 24mm with just a bit of cropping.

Same for a 20-35mm and a 24-70mm zoom. Owning is OK, moving both around in your car is OK (you'd have a backup if one of them breaks), but carrying them both around at the same time is kinda silly.

However owning a prime lens at a focal length that you already have a zoom for is not redundant at all, since prime lenses serve different purpose than zooms. It wouldnt even be silly to own a 50mm f1.8 or f1.4 alongside your 24-70mm, even less a 20mm f1.8.

All in all I would say its not problematic to have a hole in your array of focal length of about a stop. For example I'm very happy with a 16-35mm and 70-200mm zoom pair, both AF-S f4 VR.

Its basically the same for prime lenses, though especially towards longer focal lengths, bigger steps than just twice the focal is fine there, too. For example one could use 20mm, 35mm, 85mm, 300mm as a very versatile four prime lenses setup.

astroNikon · Jul 19, 2016

having a 20-35 and 24-70 at the same time is not silly.

The problem with the 24-35 is it is Horrible at focal lengths from 36 to 70,
and subsequently 20-23 for the shorter lens.

These are also different generation lenses.
In the old days the 20-35 fit well with the 35-70, then the 80-200. So there was absolutely no overlap so there was a clear this OR that lens.

I frequently carry my 18-35 and 24-85 together with me. I love the perspective distortion that I can get with the 18 @ 18mm or just wider UWA shots. The 24mm can't quite get to 18 as well as the 18 can. And of course the 18-35 has a hard time from 36 to 85.

The overlap is actually handy for my uses. I use the 24-85 a lot down to 24 but when I absolutely need something wider I can use the 18-35. And sometimes I go up to 35 on it and I don't have to change lenses again. Over lap is fine to me but YMMV.

Solarflare · Jul 20, 2016

astroNikon said:
These are also different generation lenses.

Apparently I shouldnt have picked any actual lenses to make my point.

I wasnt interested in discussing any actual, specific lenses.

I wanted to state that having two zoom lenses of which the area greatly overlaps at the same time on your person is a bad idea. Same for having too many prime lenses too close to each other. Thats because you get to carry around a LOT of weight very quickly this way and you dont want to switch lenses all the time in the first place.