wide angle lens for canon rebel

[UAE10let o]

I'm thinking about wide angle lenses and I'm wondering if people have any suggestions or experience with the Canon 24mm f/2.8 and/or the Sigma 20mm f/1.8. The Canon 14mm f/2.8 is very attractive but price matters, especially since I will use this lens to shoot my friend's band in bars & I'd bring a $2000 lens even if had it. Although I'm sure I'll use the lens for other things too, I'm not overly concerned about the crop. I've never bought a Sigma lens but the f/1.8 seems like it might be better than the f/2.8 offered by the Canon. I'm also open to other options if anyone has other ideas or suggestions.

Thanks so much!

[inkista]

The Sigma 20/1.8 just looks odd to my eyes, but that's a matter of personal taste. Lots of folks love the lens.

If you really want wide-wide-wide on a crop and wanted to max the wide-angle distortion, without going fisheye, I'd actually recommend looking at the Tokina 11-16 f/2.8.

There's also the Samyang/Rokinon/Bower, etc. 14mm f/2.8, which is substantially cheaper ($400) than the Canon 14L. It's manual focus, though. But the performance of the second UMC version is pretty astounding. Just make sure before you get it, that you're ok with its mustache distortion (barrel & pincushion combined), or have software that can handle it--simple distortion corrections won't work with this.

[BigVinnie]

The Bower is a nice lens, manual focus only but not that big of deal unless things are less than 10 ft away.

The 24mm 2.8 is a very nice lens for the money. I recently tried one out myself and it is on my shopping list. It is just not very wide, but for what your stated purpose is I think it will be just about right.

Even at 2.8 you might have some issues with not enough light.

[UAE10let o]

Thanks for the input. I think I may borrow and rent a few lens to try them out.