Nikon Nikkor wide-angle lens - 20 mm F/2.8

This lens can be extremely useful if used in the right situations and on the right subject.

It is a very wide angle and gives a very dramatic perspective and great depth to images, especially when used for landscapes, with a good foreground; it makes the whole scene more dramatic still.

Its aperture range is a big bonus, allowing great depth of field at f32 and ease of use in low available light situations at f2.8. ...
...is flawless; of course, photographing a subject that is too close will undoubtedly result in it being deformed and stretched out, but this is the beauty of wide angle lenses, when used properly. This is how you make legs longer, a small room look vast and your garden look like a park.

However, sharpness is not lost at the edges of the image and the result, especially when used with a small aperture, is that you get an impeccably sharp ... more

This lens can be extremely useful if used in the right situations and on the right subject.

It is a very wide angle and gives a very dramatic perspective and great depth to images, especially when used for landscapes, with a good foreground; it makes the whole scene more dramatic still.

Its aperture range is a big bonus, allowing great depth of field at f32 and ease of use in low available light situations at f2.8.

The quality of the images is flawless; of course, photographing a subject that is too close will undoubtedly result in it being deformed and stretched out, but this is the beauty of wide angle lenses, when used properly. This is how you make legs longer, a small room look vast and your garden look like a park.

However, sharpness is not lost at the edges of the image and the result, especially when used with a small aperture, is that you get an impeccably sharp image all over.

I always use a UV or Polarizer filter on my lenses, but with this one (as with most wide angles usually), I have to remove the UV or Polarizer if I want to use a gradual filter or any other filter, as 2 filters at the same time means that you will get little dark corners on your images, but I do not see this as a big disadvantage, as such situations are not very common, and if you really wanted to use two filters, you can use the large square filters such as Cokin. The few times I felt the need to use 2 filters on my 20mm, I kept the screw in one on the lens and hand held a square one in front, and it worked.

The lens is very light and so you don't have to think twice when packing and deciding what gear to take with you, as one often does.

I have had it for many years and it has served me well. Although I use it mainly for landscape and nature images, I like to have fun taking funny portraits with it, you get a huge head and a tiny little body, and if you get closer still, you can really make "caricaturistic" portraits.

This leads me to yet another good point about this camera, which is the fact that you can focus on really close items without losing sharpness. Very useful indeed.
 

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