Here at The Phoblographer, we have a soft spot for 24mm lenses, and for good reason. These prime lenses are so handy they should have a permanent home in each and every camera bag around the globe. Need a lens for street photography? The 24mm has you covered. Need a solid performer for environmental portraits, landscapes, astrophotography, weddings, or documentary and photojournalism work? A trusty 24mm won’t let you down. Here’s a quick look at six of our favorite 24mm lenses that you should consider adding to your lens library.
Captured with the Panasonic 12mm f1.4
We have talked about just how much we love the 24mm focal length in the past. The feelings we shared are still the same, now. What’s so great about 24mm lenses? They are wide enough to capture gorgeous landscapes, cityscapes, and street scenes, yet they are not wide enough to cause crazy distortion. 24mm lenses are the perfect length for storytellers, documentarians, and photojournalists. They will allow you to capture a large storytelling scene with ease. These 24mm lenses also have wide apertures, which means you can shoot in dimly lit environments without much trouble. These lenses work well for a ton of different genres, which is really what makes them invaluable. Every photographer should have space for 24mm lenses in their camera bag. Check out six of our favorites below.
Fujifilm 16mm F2.8 R WR (24mm Equivalent)
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Small
- Lightweight
- Weather sealed
- Fun to use
- Affordable
- Good for documentary work and travel
- Incredibly fast autofocus
Cons
- Not sure why there isn’t an effective manual focus distance scale for hyperfocal length shooting
- It’s a wide-angle lens with a relatively slow aperture for an APS-C camera system
Buy now ($399): Adorama
Nikon 24mm F1.8 G
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Surprisingly sharp
- Lightweight, you’ll never want to take it off of your camera
- Nice bokeh
- Great colors
- Fast autofocus and very accurate overall
Cons
- Fairly pricy (at the time of writing)
Buy now ($676.95): Adorama
Captured with the Sony 24mm f1.4 G Master
Pro Tip: 24mm lenses lend themselves really well to documentary photography, and any kind of storytelling genre. These lenses are great for environmental portraits, wedding photography, event photography, street photography, and so much more. Of course, having a suitable lens is one thing, but knowing how to use it is another thing entirely. If you’re itching to try your hand at any kind of documentary photography, this guide will teach you how to tell compelling stories with your lens. You’ll learn how to approach subjects, how to identify what a good story image would be, and so much more.
Sigma 24mm F1.4 DG HSM Art
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Excellent sharpness
- Great bokeh for a 24mm lens
- Solid build quality
- Very fast focusing
- A good price for what this lens is
Cons
- Not a single major complaint
- Only minor complaint: the lens exhibits more color fringing than we’d like. But it’s easily removed in post-production and not worth being bothered by
Buy now Canon EF ($849): Adorama
Buy now Nikon F ($849): Adorama
Fujifilm 16mm F1.4 R WR
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Very sharp wide open
- Very sharp overall
- The excellent metal build quality
- The focusing ring allows for zone focusing
- Pretty decent bokeh for a lens of this type
- Fast-focusing performance
- Weather sealed construction
- Keeps distortion down pretty well
Cons
- Depth of Field scale could have given us more focusing markers
- More purple fringing than a modern lens should have despite it easily being removed in post-production
- Autofocus is just a hair too slow for street photography
Buy now ($899): Adorama
Captured with the Sigma 24mm f1.4 DG HSM Art
Pro Tip: 24mm lenses are extremely popular with landscape and cityscape photographers thanks to their wide field of view. You can easily capture dynamic scenes with these lenses, and you won’t have to worry about distortion like you would with a wider lens. If you have never tried your hand at landscape photography before, and you think you would like to give it a shot with a 24mm lens, you should check out this guide to landscape photography. This tutorial will teach you everything you need to know about landscape photography from start to finish. You’ll be creating stunning images, and getting the most out of your new lens in no time after you finish this course.
Panasonic 12mm F1.4 (24mm Equivalent)
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Stellar image quality
- Mostly accurate autofocus on Olympus cameras
- Beautiful colors
- Smallish size
- Weather sealing
Cons
- We really wish that Panasonic adopted the pump-focus ring option vs the side-switch
- A bit more fringing than we’d like or honestly expect here
- Autofocus on an Olympus camera can be unreliable at times
Buy now ($1,297.99): Adorama
Sony 24mm F1.4 G Master
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Compact and lightweight
- Weather sealed
- Superb image quality
- Outstanding edge to edge sharpness, even when shooting wide open
- Dreamy, circular bokeh
- The impressive minimal focus distance of 0.79 feet (0.24 meters)
Cons
- Slight color fringing (easily mitigated in post-processing)
Buy now ($1,398): Adorama
