I see lot of great work on this forum and was just wondering what is your favoraite landscape lens ? At present I use Canon 17-40 with Canon 5Dmkii and was planning to upgrade to 16-35 F2.8 but on other hand I doubt having faster lens will make any bigger difference in landscape work as most of time I'm seeing images at anything smaller than F5.6. Any recommendations here ?
I probably use the 70-200mm f/4 most for landscape. Second might be a tie between the 100-400mm L zoom and the 24-105. The 17-40 comes in well behind those other lens. YMMV.
I recommend you save the 'upgrade' money and spend it on a trip to someplace like Yellowstone, Antarctica, Utah, or wherever you want to go...
The Landscape photography genre is, more than most, extremely dependent on the photographer. IMO, 90% of the effort required to produce a good image takes place before the shutter is even pressed. Assuming your camera and lens are functional and not outright junk, you're good to go. Pixel peepers and gear dweebs seldom make compelling images.
Canon TSE 24/f3.5 II. I use both tilt and shift lens movements quite a lot in landscape photography, and this lens is the most common angle of view for my compositions. Also the TSE 24 II is really a top optic, one of the very best tilt/shift lenses available for image quality.
Sorry, this answer may not help the OP much.
Mike K
Greg is right, at least at web sized images. however, to print large, it is nice though not essential to have a lens with good optical characteristics. and sharpness is only one.
I like shooting wide. I would say its a tough call between canon 16-35II and nikon 14-24 on my canon full frame, but if I were to pick one, it would be 16-35 II, b/c of versatility, over all image quality, including flare characteristic, micro contrast, etc.
Jan 13, 2013 at 11:03 PM
Jonathan Huynh Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
kevindar wrote:
Greg is right, at least at web sized images. however, to print large, it is nice though not essential to have a lens with good optical characteristics. and sharpness is only one.
I like shooting wide. I would say its a tough call between canon 16-35II and nikon 14-24 on my canon full frame, but if I were to pick one, it would be 16-35 II, b/c of versatility, over all image quality, including flare characteristic, micro contrast, etc.
For typical landscape shooting - tripod-based and not wide open - there is really little advantage in the getting the 16-35 rather than the 17-40.
Dan, you may be right. when I however compared one copy of each, I found the 17-40 to never have really sharp corners, even stopped down, hefty distortion at 17, and not quite as good of microcontrast. however, i am sure there is copy to copy variation. If funds were limited, and I was using the lens purely for shooting landscape, I think the 17-40 is a fine lens. 16-35 also happens to be my favorite video lens.
When I compared them I didn't see a massive difference between 17-40 and 16-35 II when stopped down. The 16-35 is good if you need f/2.8, but neither lens has brilliant corner sharpness.
Great images can be made with either if you're in the right place at the right time.
The great thing about the 17-40 is its value for money, plus it does not have a center hotspot that a 16-35 mk 2 does. Until now i keep that lens.
the 16-35 mk 2 is equally great and sharper on the corners. Other advantages would be the 2.8 that is great if you are into astro or northern light huntings. This is why i was lured into buying one, i simply cannot be reliant on the moon and ambient light everytime as shooting aurora is dependent on when it comes out regardless of moon phase or where you are. The sunburst rays are point and sharp as well at F16-22 compared to the 17-40 which opens up the rays. If those things are important to you id take the 16-35. I keep the 17-40 mostly for infrared and i already have 77mm filters.
The 24-105 is turning out to be used for the majority of many landscape shots; while I always have it, I don't go to the 17-40 as much as I thought I would. When I was using only a crop camera, the 17-55 and 10-22 were about evenly split. But evidently the additional wideness provided by the 24-105 over the 17-55 is enough to take care of most of my wide shots. On the other end, 105 is enough for most longer shots, even though I always have the 70-200 f/4 IS, and sometime the 100-400 with me.
Used to be the Zeiss 21mm. Now it is the Nikon 14-24mm. Such an amazing lens made even better with the option of the polarizer via fotodiox wonderpana system.
