Looking far a good medium-wide-angle prime

[Bennymiata]

I take a lot of product shots for work, and often need a 25-35mm lens to take groups of products together.

I have a nifty-fifty and a Canon 60mm F2.8 macro, and they work very well for some jobs, but for others, I need a wider angle.
I currently uise my 24-105L when I need to go wider, but I really want a lens that will give me great edge to edge sharpness. The 24-105 is pretty good, but I think a good prime would do the job even better and would get a lot of use.

I looked into the Sigma 30mm F1.4 and the Canon 28mm F1.8, but from the reports I've been reading, their edge sharpness is not good enough and they have CA, which is an absolute no-no for me.
I really don't want to shell out for the Canon 35mm F1.4L, so do you learned ladies and gentlemen have any other suggestions for a fast, wide prime with good edge to edge sharpess?
Zooms just aren't good enough for what I want, so it has to be a prime.

[davomate]

At that angle you are going to have to make compromises unless you shell out the big bucks. I have read a review that said the Tamron 17-50 (a zoom, I know) is sharper than the wide-angle primes in the same price range. * removed : members with under 50 posts cannot link to other sites *

[fabian628]

you might find that the 28mm f/1.8 or 35mm f/2 may have acceptable edge to edge on a crop camera (unless the reports you have read show poor performance on 1.6x) I think the level of CA's will not be so great when you stop down to f/4-5.6 You should see the 35 f/1.4 when there is backlight and high contrast edges, there is massive CA's wide open but will dissapear at narrower apertures.

Other then that there is not much more than you mentioned (apart from 35 f/2) in that range.

Also, are you shooting under low light situations?

[Bennymiata]

Thanks for your replies.
Yes, I am often shooting in low light situations, but i'm often at around F8 to get some DOF.
One problem is that I am often shooting black items on a white background, hence the problems with CA.
i generally use 2 flashes. The one built into my D60 + a 580EX II which I hand hold (don't you love wireless flash), and on occasion, I get some purple fringing due to the huge contrast between the very black objects I'm taking and using a white background.
I could take them using a coloured background, then cutting out the images in Photoshop, but I'm often too pressed for time to sit and work on the photos too much, so I prefer to just use a white background as it saves me some work at the PC.

I get very little, if any CA, using the 24-105, but I feel that a good prime will do an even better job.
Might just have to check out the 24mm and 35mm L primes from Canon, but they seem to be a lot of money for a not-much-better quality of photo.

[jjphoto]

Are you willing to use an 'Alt' lens on the Canon body. An olympus 28/2.8 with OM>EOS adapter would cost about $300. A Contax 28/2.8 AE (or preferably MM) would cost about $3-400 with an adapter. Both of these have excellent sharpness (the Contax is astonishing) and are relatively cheap. However they are 'manual' lenses and this isn't everyones cup of tea.

The point is that there are many more options than just those offered by Canon. You might look at Zeiss or maybe Voigtlander have some thing in that focal length too.

JJ

[fabian628]

In lightroom you can desaturate purples to get rid of these fringings. But f/8 i do not think these primes will have a problem. Only wide open or close to, this is a problem.

[Longshots]

I'm very surprised that you're getting that type of CA with the lens you state. If you're using CS5 or lower, in Adobe Camera RAW there is a couple of slider adjustments that you can use to reduce this type of CA. But the question is why you're getting it in the first place. Its not usual for that type of lens in that environment. Perhaps you could post a link of a non adjusted image, that with the min of processing is "straight out of camera". I think you would be better off solving that issue, before you spend money on more lenses.

[DAdeGroot]

I looked into the Sigma 30mm F1.4 and the Canon 28mm F1.8, but from the reports I've been reading, their edge sharpness is not good enough and they have CA, which is an absolute no-no for me.
I really don't want to shell out for the Canon 35mm F1.4L, so do you learned ladies and gentlemen have any other suggestions for a fast, wide prime with good edge to edge sharpess?
Zooms just aren't good enough for what I want, so it has to be a prime.

Hate to say it, but if you want to solve it with a lens, rather than the somewhat cheaper corrections in software, you're up for either the 35/1.4L or the 24/1.4L. Both will do exactly what you want, but at a price.

As William mentioned though, CA should be fairly easily corrected in software, and can be reduced by being careful with what you shoot.

[Bennymiata]

Thanks guys for all of your inputs.

My photos are coming out OK, for 95% of the time, but I guess I'm always after perfection, and having the picture jump out at you, and I love lenses and camera gear in general, so I guess i like to make excuses for buying some new piece of equipment.

Here's a couple of shots.
The one of the bags is completely unprocessed and was taken as a jpeg, and it did come out reasonable, but we always want something better.
Taken with a Canon D60 and a 24-105L at around 35mm at F8 using 2 flashes and taken in my tiny studio.
68734

This one was taken using my Canon 60mm Macro lens. Only adjustments are cropping and a slight adjustment to the levels.
Again, taken in jpeg format.

68735

As this lens will mainly be used as a manual focus lens, the Zeiss lenses are looking pretty good to me right now.
Some of the reports i've read on the 24mm and 35mm L lenses say they aren't much better than the much cheaper, non-L lenses.