If you watch carefully I think you'll find that you'll only see about a $150 price difference on the secondary (used) market. Lots of good samples of either seem to be passing through the Buy & Sell Forum and I've found sellers here to be very reputable. At that point, it's just a FOV preference.
There are awesome deals on the 14 on buy & sell at times. I got mine for $450 and it had zero issues. It's a very sharp lens with low coma, makes it pretty good for astro work as well. It pretty much lives on my camera.
ibarrabenjamin wrote:
Thank you so much for doing this, it is helpful. As expected, the 14mm is noticeably wider than the 16mm f2,8. Enough of a differnece but not sure if 500 dollars difference for daily use. Now I wonder what makes the 14mm f2.8 so special for the hefty price, it is not WR as the 16mm f2.8 is.
Thanks agian.
My guess would be that the 14mm offers visibly better optical performance. $500 better is probably highly subjective, but I haven't seen anyone being disappointed with the 14 whereas there certainly have been some mixed reviews on the 16/2.8, which seem to rely on some pretty aggressive digital corrections compared to the wider lens.
ibarrabenjamin wrote:
Thank you so much for doing this, it is helpful. As expected, the 14mm is noticeably wider than the 16mm f2,8. Enough of a differnece but not sure if 500 dollars difference for daily use. Now I wonder what makes the 14mm f2.8 so special for the hefty price, it is not WR as the 16mm f2.8 is.
Thanks agian.
Optically, 14mm is a better performer. For approximately $450 USD (good used copy) you're getting a very sharp lens with super low distortion (quite helpful if you're into landscape or architecture photography), minimal vignetting and good flare resistance. IMO, 16/2.8 is a mixed bag ... the lens relies heavily on camera correction algorithms.
