Does anybody have any recommendations for alt lenses on a 5D mkII body for night sky photography? I already own (C/Y) Zeiss 21mm, 35mm f1.4, Nikon 14-24, and Canon's new 24mm mkII and 35mm f1.4L. I recently tried the Zeiss 21mm wide open, and although it performs well, there is a bit of sagittal coma, vignettes more than I'd like, and is 1 stop away from where I'd like to be (f2.0). The Zeiss 35mm f1.4 was absolutely awful, wide open (sagittal coma).
Anybody use the Zeiss ZE f2.0 for this type of photography yet?
Well according to a review I read, the 24/1.4 II has pronounced sagittal coma flare at wide apertures. This bums me a little as night sky photography is one of the reasons I bought this lens. I guess it's difficult to design a fast 24 with insignificant coma flare. Nevertheless I will reserve judgement until I get to try night sky photography with it.
I looked up the Nikon 28/1.4 because I'd not heard of it before. They are going for around $4K on ebay. Wow.
Another potential option is the Zeiss 35/2 - supposedly a well corrected lens.
Thank you. Most of the fast lenses I have will work fine for moonlight, but for stars, sagittal coma can get very nasty with fast lenses, when used wide open... Sagittal coma is the "birds wings" effect you get with point sources of light, and is especially bothersome towards the edges of the frame..
Those are pretty good looking shots, at that web resolution. Especially for having to keep your shutter speed under a certain point to avoid trails, and have your ISO high enough to pick up enough light but without crudding up the image with noise or color/detail loss.
