Best wide-angle prime lens: fast and wide lenses for Canon and Nikon DSLRs

Best wide-angle prime lenses for Nikon DSLRs

Here’s our top ten wide-angle prime lenses for Nikon DSLRs, based on good image quality, handling and all-round performance at an ‘affordable’ price. We’ve therefore excluded the Nikon AF-S 24mm f/1.4G ED, Nikon AF-S 28mm f/1.4E ED and Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM | A. They’re all excellent lenses but, for wide primes, they’re simply too expensive for most non-professional photographers to consider. Similarly, we’ve gone for mainstream lenses in most cases that include autofocus, although the manual-focus Zeiss Milvus 2/35mm is a notable exception, and it’s rather more compact and less expensive than other wide primes in the Milvus line-up. We’ve also included the Samyang 10mm, as it’s the only one on the list that’s designed for DX format (APS-C) cameras. There are some other interesting manual-focus wide primes for full-frame DSLRs on the market, including Irix 11mm and 15mm lenses, and the Laowa 15mm Macro. They deliver good performance and value for money, but don’t quite make it into our top ten.

Compared with standard zooms for full-frame cameras that kick off with a 24mm focal length, this lens gives you a wider viewing angle. Considering the combination of 20mm focal length and fairly fast f/1.8 aperture, it’s quite a compact and lightweight lens. The ring-type ultrasonic autofocus system is fast and near-silent, but the rotational travel of the manual focus ring is very small, making accurate manual focusing tricky. Similarities between this lens and the Nikon 24mm (also featured) are that they both feature two ED elements, two aspherical elements and Nano Crystal Coating. At f/1.8, vignetting is very pronounced and corner-sharpness is sadly lacking. However, you only need to stop down to f/2.8 to get decent peripheral illumination, while f/4 improves sharpness across the whole frame. Color fringing can be noticeable towards the corners of the frame but barrel distortion is of a fairly low order. The competing Sigma 20mm f/1.4 Art lens offers better image quality and a faster aperture, but the Nikon lens is very much more compact and only about a third of the weight.

Nikon makes a variety of FX standard zoom lenses with ranges of 24-70mm, 24-85mm and 24-120mm. This lens has to deliver something rather special to make you spend a considerable sum of extra money, considering there’s no gain in viewing angle. One advantage is its wider aperture rating of f/1.8, compared with the f/2.8, f/3.5 or f/4 of the zoom lenses, making it anywhere from 1.33 to 2.33 f/stops faster. Even so, it’s still two-thirds of a stop slower than the competing (and less expensive) Sigma 24mm lens. The Nikon’s construction doesn’t feel quite as robust as that of the Sigma and neither of them are weather-sealed, although the Nikon does feature a rubber sealing ring on its mounting plate. Autofocus isn’t quite as quick as in the Sigma lens but is similarly accurate. For image quality, sharpness is very good across most of the frame but drops off noticeably in the corners at wide apertures from f/1.8 to f/2.8. The prime does better than standard zooms to keep color fringing and barrel distortion to a minimum. Vignetting is very noticeable at f/1.8 but the Nano coatings do well to resist ghosting and flare.

Bridging the gap between the classic 35mm wide-angle focal length and the seriously wide 24mm, this Nikon is a good compromise and retains the same f/1.8 aperture rating as its stablemates. It’s slightly larger and heavier than the Nikon 35mm lens, at 73 x 81mm and 330g, compared with 72 x 72mm and 305g, and has a bigger 67mm rather than 58mm filter thread. The lens features the same total count of 11 optical elements as the Nikon 35mm. This time, however, there are two aspherical elements rather than one, but no ED (Extra-low Dispersion) element. The 28mm also gains Nano Crystal Coat, for better reduction of ghosting and flare, but retains the same diaphragm blade count of seven. Again, it has ring-type ultrasonic autofocus and is supplied with a hood and pouch. Corner-sharpness at wide apertures proved much better than from the Nikon 35mm lens in our tests, but color fringing was a little worse. There’s less barrel distortion than from the Nikon 35mm lens, despite the wider viewing angle. True to its claims, the nano-structure coating does well to minimize ghosting and flare.

Despite being a third of an f/stop faster than the competing Zeiss Milvus 35mm f/2 lens, the Nikon 35mm is a little smaller and less than half the weight, tipping the scales at just 305g. Typical of this this class of Nikon lens, autofocus is courtesy of a ring-type ultrasonic system. It’s fast, effective and whisper-quiet, as well as enabling full-time manual override. Manual focusing is aided by a distance scale but it’s of limited benefit, with no markings between 0.7m and infinity, the positions of which are very close in terms of rotation of the focus ring. Accurate zone focusing therefore isn’t really an option. Sharpness at the corners of the frame is a little disappointing, especially at wide apertures, but it’s pretty stellar in the central region, all the way from f/2.8 to f/11. Vignetting is a little more severe than with most competing lenses and the seven-blade diaphragm isn’t the most well-rounded. Color fringing and distortion are fairly minimal. Technically, it’s not a standout lens but many photographers love it for its mostly sharp, high-contrast image quality, and its compact, lightweight build.

Designed exclusively for ‘DX’ or APS-C format DSLRs, this lens has an ‘effective’ focal length of 15mm in full-frame terms. It gives nearly double the viewing angle of most DX format standard zoom lenses, making it a worthy addition. As with most Samyang lenses, there’s no autofocus facility but the Nikon-fit edition of this lens includes electronics that enable camera-driven aperture control and the illumination of focus assist/confirmation lamps in the viewfinder. The lens hood forms an integral part of the barrel and can’t be removed, precluding the attachment of filters. Build quality feels good overall, and the focus ring has a smooth, fluid feel to its rotation, with a generous 140 degrees of travel enabling very precise focusing. There’s remarkably little drop-off in sharpness across the whole of the frame when shooting wide-open, although vignetting is severe. Barrel distortion can be quite noticeable but color fringing is fairly minimal. High-tech nano-structure coatings do well to fend off ghosting and flare.