gdanmitchell
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Lightning Fan wrote:
I've come to the R7 from the 7Dii. My main interests were wildlife, aviation and garden imagery. However I've now started to do more landscape photography. My primary lenses for landscape are the Canon 10-18, Tamron 17-50 f2.8 (non VC) and Canon 70-200 f4. On a recent landscape shoot it was apparent how much better quality the 70-200 images were SOOC compared with the 17-50. This has seriously made me look for an upgrade on this lens. I've considered the Canon 16-35 f4 but concerned this would leave a big hole in focal length until 70mm. I've checked my Lightroom data and 1/3 are taken at 17mm, 1/3 at 50mm with the remainder at a variety of focal lengths between.
Any advice on an upgrade much appreciated please... especially if it doesn't bankrupt me !...Show more →
T/here's a lot to unpack and a lot to think about here.
The idea that "landscape lens" means wide-angle lens is, I think, a bit of an unfortunate generalization. Quite a few of the landscape photographers I know will tell you that their favorite and most-used zoom (for full frame cameras) is the 70-200mm lens. Admittedly, the 70-200 on your APS-C system provides a smaller angle of view range, but long lenses are often quite useful for landscape photography.
The lenses you have aren't bad at all of APS-C landscape photography. I wonder if the difference you see between the 70-200 "SOOC" and the 17-50 a) matters, b) is large, and c) would be ameliorated by different .jpg sharpening settings in the camera or — and better if you are getting serious about landscape photography —using different sharpening settings in post. It would be interesting to see one of your best 17-50mm images here alongside one of your best 70-200mm images. This would help isolate your issue with the 17-50. (And, it takes more than one landscape shoot to determine such things.)
You don't mention whether you are doing the other typical things that landscape photographers do to ensure sharp images. These include using a tripod, using a remote release, perhaps using the live view display at high magnification to check critical focus, and choosing apertures that maximize sharpness. (For example, I hope you are not falling victim to the old and wrong advice to "shoot at f/16 for the sharpest image." That increases depth-of-field but it also diminishes the maximum resolution from your lens due to diffraction blur. With your APS-C lenses, a better starting point for maximum sharpness is likely to be a larger aperture, perhaps around f/5.6 (to make a rough estimate) or so.
What do you do with your photographs? Are you making rather large prints? This gets to me point: "a) matters." Let's say that you can see some difference between your two lenses at 100% or larger magnifications on the screen "SOOC." But after you apply typical sharpening post-SOOC and produce your typical output sizes (letter-sized prints? 13" x 19" prints? on-screen display only?) these differences may be completely invisible.
I'm tempted to suggest that if you decide you need something to replace your 17-50mm Tampon lens you consider the Canon 17-55m EFS f/2.8 lens. It is a fine lens that does everything your current lens does. But I wonder if you are going to see enough real-world difference in your final results to go there.
One other question: Are you planning to stick with your APS-C system indefinitely? There's nothing wrong with that idea at all, but I know that some hope to eventually move to full frame. If you are imagining a FF system in the future, you might consider how any lenses you acquire will work on that, too.
Ome more thing: The Canon 16-35mm f/4 is a really fine lens. Its coverage on APS-C goes from fairly wide to slightly longer than "normal." (FF angle-of-view equivalent range is about 25.5mm to 88mm.) Unless you are a big fan of ultra-wide angle landscapes, that's wide enough for a whole lot of stuff. (I have the 16-35 on my FF system, but I probably only use it for maybe 5% of my photographs.) But, as you note, it leaves a gap between 35mm and 70mm. There are different thoughts on this. As mentioned, one is to "fill the gap" with a 50mm prime. I regard this as a lightweight compromise solution for some who want wide FL range but need to keep weight down — but generally my preference for landscape is to have full coverage (and even slight overlaps) among zoom lenses. If you feel that way, now you start looking at adding something like a 24-70mm lens... and things are starting to get complex and expensive. (One other option is to pair your 70-200mm lens with one of the 24-105mm lenses.)
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Or, more likely, take my RF 24-105 L.