AskMaddiLenses for Street Photography
On the criteria street photography leans on — Optical Performance, Handling, Bokeh, Color Rendition and af_performance — here is how the reviewed lenses compare, with the sourced evidence behind each position. We don't crown a winner; we show the fit and let you decide.
Ranked on the evidence
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Handling.
- Optical Performance+72%87▲ / 8▼ of 109 · low
- Handling+79%34▲ / 1▼ of 42 · low
- Bokeh+73%47▲ / 6▼ of 56 · low
- Color Rendition+77%27▲ / 0▼ of 35 · low
"the left hand side versus the Leica maintains its sharpness across the entire image again you can see how sharp the rocks are here on the left hand side and on the Panasonic you start seeing a slight blur because the cor…" — Alex Barrera Leica Summicron
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Handling.
- Optical Performance+65%68▲ / 10▼ of 89 · medium
- Handling+57%14▲ / 2▼ of 21 · medium
- Bokeh+81%23▲ / 1▼ of 27 · medium
- Color Rendition+78%8▲ / 1▼ of 9 · low (thin evidence)
"We're seeing sharper edges in the corners." — Thecamerastoretv Why This
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Color Rendition.
- Optical Performance+62%64▲ / 9▼ of 89 · low
- Handling+47%11▲ / 3▼ of 17 · low
- Bokeh+83%15▲ / 0▼ of 18 · low
- Color Rendition+100%2▲ / 0▼ of 2 · low (thin evidence)
"Um, and my unit is super sharp." — Grays Of Westminster
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Handling.
- Optical Performance+55%13▲ / 2▼ of 20 · low
- Handling+78%7▲ / 0▼ of 9 · low (thin evidence)
- Bokeh+25%2▲ / 1▼ of 4 · low (thin evidence, contested)
- Color Rendition+100%1▲ / 0▼ of 1 · low (thin evidence)
"it in the lens um but uh yeah great lens so let's have a quick look at some of these images now if we look at the comparison between wide angle and telephoto so that's at a 12 mil end and that's at the obviously the uh t…" — Avp Studios Om System
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Color Rendition.
- Optical Performance+64%42▲ / 7▼ of 55 · low
- Handling+33%5▲ / 2▼ of 9 · low (thin evidence)
- Bokeh+58%16▲ / 2▼ of 24 · low
- Color Rendition+100%2▲ / 0▼ of 2 · low (thin evidence)
"i don't like to use this word a lot but it's flawless when it performs wide open flawless [Music] look this way [Music] now coming from using cinema lenses um i use a certain blend of modern vintage lenses that are quite…" — Moment
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Handling.
- Optical Performance+53%49▲ / 11▼ of 72 · low
- Handling+67%17▲ / 1▼ of 24 · low
- Bokeh+38%9▲ / 4▼ of 13 · low (thin evidence)
- Color Rendition+86%6▲ / 0▼ of 7 · low (thin evidence)
"I took this single exposure at 14 mm pushing into those pandanus trees and wow, I'm so impressed with the sharpness with this lens." — Adrian Alford Photography Tamron
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Bokeh.
- Optical Performance+63%60▲ / 8▼ of 82 · medium
- Handling+31%16▲ / 6▼ of 32 · medium (contested)
- Bokeh+77%32▲ / 2▼ of 39 · medium
- Color Rendition+72%13▲ / 0▼ of 18 · medium
"though i've been really impressed with how well this lens performs when it comes to focusing right onto image quality now don't be shocked when i say that the optics in this lens are top quality because that's exactly wh…" — Brett Day
Strongest reviewer support on Handling and Color Rendition.
- Optical Performance+21%11▲ / 7▼ of 19 · low
- Handling+67%4▲ / 0▼ of 6 · low (thin evidence)
- Bokeh+86%6▲ / 0▼ of 7 · low (thin evidence)
- Color Rendition+100%2▲ / 0▼ of 2 · low (thin evidence)
"rather high on contrasting edges stop down just a little to f2.8 and that's reduced and at F4 we get a clean image with perfect sharpness anyway let's open the aperture back up to f2.5 and look over into the corners ouch…" — Christopher Frost
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Handling.
- Optical Performance+50%52▲ / 14▼ of 76 · low
- Handling+47%11▲ / 3▼ of 17 · low
- Bokeh+50%2▲ / 0▼ of 4 · low (thin evidence, contested)
- Color Rendition+70%8▲ / 1▼ of 10 · low (thin evidence)
"ridiculously sharp with excellent contrast and the corners well outstanding this is incredibly impressive to really appreciate what we're dealing with here by way of comparison here's the closest equivalent lens that I'v…" — Christopher Frost
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Handling.
- Optical Performance+44%68▲ / 20▼ of 109 · low
- Handling+61%20▲ / 3▼ of 28 · low
- Bokeh+46%22▲ / 6▼ of 35 · low
- Color Rendition+55%14▲ / 3▼ of 20 · low
"what it looked like originally that's what it looks like after and then here is another view where it was a slightly longer exposure 5 Seconds f3.5 ISO 100 and we are getting nice sharp edges around the Contour of this v…" — Anthony Gugliotta Canons Sharpest
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Handling.
- Optical Performance+37%47▲ / 15▼ of 87 · low
- Handling+53%23▲ / 4▼ of 36 · low
- Bokeh+64%8▲ / 1▼ of 11 · low (thin evidence)
- Color Rendition+45%6▲ / 1▼ of 11 · low (thin evidence)
"it's totally fine I could talk about the image quality from an objective standpoint and I could tell you again it's fine it's a 28 mm lens so there's some vignetting there's some Barrel Distortion it's fine it doesn't I …" — Chris Tellez
Strongest reviewer support on Handling and Optical Performance.
- Optical Performance+25%78▲ / 43▼ of 139 · low
- Handling+68%17▲ / 2▼ of 22 · low
- Bokeh+60%30▲ / 5▼ of 42 · low
- Color Rendition+45%7▲ / 2▼ of 11 · low (thin evidence)
"Now there's quite a bit of cat's eye effect in this lens, but for the price you'd expect it and I actually prefer it to like normal sharp lenses that don't have it." — Cbr By Amir
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Handling.
- Optical Performance+40%15▲ / 5▼ of 25 · low
- Handling+33%9▲ / 4▼ of 15 · low (contested)
- Bokeh+30%6▲ / 3▼ of 10 · low (thin evidence)
- Color Rendition+57%4▲ / 0▼ of 7 · low (thin evidence)
"my latest video and it stayed with me throughout the entire recording which that video was like 30 minutes of continuous recording as far as sharpness i was expecting it to be much worse wide open at f 2.8 in the center …" — Arthur R The Samyang
Strongest reviewer support on Handling and Optical Performance.
- Optical Performance+24%33▲ / 14▼ of 78 · low (contested)
- Handling+78%7▲ / 0▼ of 9 · low (thin evidence)
- Bokeh+17%6▲ / 4▼ of 12 · low (thin evidence, contested)
- Color Rendition+20%5▲ / 3▼ of 10 · low (thin evidence, contested)
"surprised with this lens is sharp as sorry sharp af rather i was very surprised with the sharpness and the clarity of this lens uh i'll include some photos here but one photo that really surprised me was this photo here …" — Andreo Photo Fujifilm
Strongest reviewer support on Handling and Optical Performance.
- Optical Performance+28%42▲ / 22▼ of 72 · low (contested)
- Handling+64%8▲ / 1▼ of 11 · low (thin evidence)
- Bokeh+29%16▲ / 7▼ of 31 · low
- Color Rendition+12%4▲ / 3▼ of 8 · low (thin evidence, contested)
"to f1.4 after all most people will be buying this lens to shoot at f1.4 the lens is very sharp indeed in the middle of the image with no visible purple finging there's plenty of contrast giving a nice clear image in the …" — Christopher Frost
Strongest reviewer support on Color Rendition and Optical Performance.
- Optical Performance+31%36▲ / 17▼ of 62 · low
- Handling+6%6▲ / 5▼ of 16 · low (contested)
- Bokeh+43%7▲ / 1▼ of 14 · low (thin evidence, contested)
- Color Rendition+100%1▲ / 0▼ of 1 · low (thin evidence)
"small full-frame camera it's about as good as it gets for an ultra wide I've said this before in previous videos it's getting hard to review these lenses from Sony Tamron Sigma because they're just getting so good that e…" — Arthur R
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Color Rendition.
- Optical Performance+40%65▲ / 23▼ of 105 · low
- Handling+22%13▲ / 7▼ of 27 · low (contested)
- Bokeh-18%3▲ / 5▼ of 11 · low (thin evidence, contested)
- Color Rendition+50%1▲ / 0▼ of 2 · low (thin evidence, contested)
"[Music] hi i'm dustin abbott and i'm here today to give you my definitive review of the sony fe 12 to 24 millimeter f 2.8 g master lens now this is kind of the big dog of sony's ultra wide angle and obviously it goes wid…" — Dustin Abbott
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Color Rendition.
- Optical Performance+38%50▲ / 18▼ of 84 · low
- Handling+6%7▲ / 6▼ of 18 · low (contested)
- Bokeh+17%19▲ / 13▼ of 35 · low
- Color Rendition+30%5▲ / 2▼ of 10 · low (thin evidence, contested)
"far as image quality goes this thing is fantastic I did test this out uh for the Sony e-mount version a little bit ago when it first came out and found that and actually almost fully covers a full frame sensor as well so…" — Benj Haisch
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Bokeh.
- Optical Performance+25%35▲ / 18▼ of 68 · low (contested)
- Handling+15%10▲ / 6▼ of 26 · low (contested)
- Bokeh+31%26▲ / 12▼ of 45 · low
- Color Rendition+6%7▲ / 6▼ of 16 · low (contested)
"course to a beautiful bouquet and sharpness is the aperture so what this lens has are 9 aperture blades that only former really around circle when stopped completely down to f-16 at moderate apertures would you get our s…" — Analog Insights Leica Summilux
Strongest reviewer support on Bokeh and Handling.
- Optical Performance-4%31▲ / 34▼ of 72 · low (contested)
- Handling+21%8▲ / 5▼ of 14 · low (thin evidence)
- Bokeh+58%17▲ / 3▼ of 24 · low
- Color Rendition+35%10▲ / 4▼ of 17 · low
"move on and look at image quality as I mentioned before there are lots of reports on the internet about this lens having quality control issues and Sample variations I can only afford to hire one copy of the lens for tes…" — Christopher Frost
Strongest reviewer support on Bokeh and Handling.
- Optical Performance+0%30▲ / 30▼ of 75 · low
- Handling+13%6▲ / 4▼ of 15 · low (contested)
- Bokeh+43%4▲ / 1▼ of 7 · low (thin evidence, contested)
"lens it looks like it's not going to be pretty in the corners we're just gonna say that so a real quick quirk to note about this lens that a lot of people have noticed is that um first of all obviously it's a new lens so…" — Brent Hall
Strongest reviewer support on Optical Performance and Handling.
- Optical Performance+22%38▲ / 22▼ of 74 · low
- Handling+14%9▲ / 6▼ of 21 · low (contested)
- Bokeh+9%7▲ / 5▼ of 23 · low (contested)
- Color Rendition-33%2▲ / 4▼ of 6 · low (thin evidence)
"and that's fine but the thing is that when I pull up a zoom lens to my eye for whatever reason I assume that it's going to be at the wide end of the spectrum the sigma is that if you pull it up and it's to 28 mm and if I…" — Benj Haisch This F28
Strongest reviewer support on Handling and Bokeh.
- Optical Performance-20%26▲ / 43▼ of 83 · low (contested)
- Handling+41%9▲ / 2▼ of 17 · low (contested)
- Bokeh+9%15▲ / 12▼ of 32 · low (contested)
- Color Rendition+0%2▲ / 2▼ of 10 · low (thin evidence, contested)
"today I will show you some results that may surprise you I compared the sharpness of two 50 mm prime lenses made by Canon they are very popular the first one is the Canon EF 50 mm f1.8 STM a cheap lens that costs around …" — Aperture Atlas
Side by side
| Camera | Optical Performance | Handling | Bokeh | Color Rendition | af_performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Leica 50mm f2 | +72% | +79% | +73% | +77% | — |
| 2. Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG DN Art II | +65% | +57% | +81% | +78% | — |
| 3. Nikon 16 50mm f2.8 | +62% | +47% | +83% | +100% | — |
| 4. OM SYSTEM 12 40mm f2.8 | +55% | +78% | +25% | +100% | — |
| 5. Sony FE 35mm F1.4 GM | +64% | +33% | +58% | +100% | — |
| 6. Tamron 12 20mm f2.8 | +53% | +67% | +38% | +86% | — |
| 7. Sigma 35mm F1.2 DG DN Art | +63% | +31% | +77% | +72% | — |
| 8. Canon 50mm f2.5 | +21% | +67% | +86% | +100% | — |
| 9. Sigma 14 24mm f2.8 | +50% | +47% | +50% | +70% | — |
| 10. Canon 35mm f1.4 | +44% | +61% | +46% | +55% | — |
| 11. Nikon 28mm f2.8 | +37% | +53% | +64% | +45% | — |
| 12. Canon 45mm f1.2 | +25% | +68% | +60% | +45% | — |
| 13. Sony 35mm f2.8 | +40% | +33% | +30% | +57% | — |
| 14. Fujifilm 16mm f2.8 | +24% | +78% | +17% | +20% | — |
| 15. Sigma 35mm f1.4 | +28% | +64% | +29% | +12% | — |
| 16. Sony 16 25mm f2.8 | +31% | +6% | +43% | +100% | — |
| 17. Sony 12 24mm f2.8 | +40% | +22% | -18% | +50% | — |
| 18. Sigma 23mm f1.4 | +38% | +6% | +17% | +30% | — |
| 19. Leica 50mm f1.4 | +25% | +15% | +31% | +6% | — |
| 20. Zeiss 35mm f1.4 | -4% | +21% | +58% | +35% | — |
| 21. Canon 16mm f2.8 | +0% | +13% | +43% | — | — |
| 22. Sony 50mm f2.8 | +22% | +14% | +9% | -33% | — |
| 23. Canon 50mm f1.8 | -20% | +41% | +9% | +0% | — |
Net reviewer sentiment per criterion (share positive minus share negative). A blank means no reviewer evidence on that axis for that camera — a gap, not a zero.
Not ranked — outside the criteria
- Canon 100 400mm f5.6 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 400; require max_aperture <= 2.8: got 5.6
- Canon 100mm f2.8 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 100
- Canon 18 200mm f3.5 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 200; require max_aperture <= 2.8: got 3.5
- Canon 200 400mm f4 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 400; require max_aperture <= 2.8: got 4
- Canon 28 105mm f3.5 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 105; require max_aperture <= 2.8: got 3.5
- Canon 70 200mm f2.8 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 200
- Nikon 85mm f1.8 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 85
- Olympus 60mm f2.8 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 60
- Panasonic 70 200mm f4 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 200; require max_aperture <= 2.8: got 4
- Sigma 16 300mm f3.5 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 300; require max_aperture <= 2.8: got 3.5
- Sigma 85mm f1.2 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 85
- Sony 100 400mm f4.5 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 400; require max_aperture <= 2.8: got 4.5
- Sony 100mm f2.8 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 100
- Sony 20 70mm f4 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 70; require max_aperture <= 2.8: got 4
- Sony 28 70mm f3.5 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 70; require max_aperture <= 2.8: got 3.5
- Sony 70 350mm f4.5 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 350; require max_aperture <= 2.8: got 4.5
- Sony 85mm f1.4 — require focal_length_mm <= 50: got 85
Pending — a spec we're still sourcing
These earned a review card but are held out until we confirm a spec the criteria gate on. That is a data gap on our side, not a mark against the camera.
- Panasonic lumix s 35mm — max_aperture: max_aperture not present on card
- Rokinon 35mm — max_aperture: max_aperture not present on card
Every position above traces to the reviewer claims on each product's card. We don't write opinions — we synthesize theirs, and we present fit rather than a verdict.