Thank you @old-gregg for your kind word, I appreciate that!
@Younjulius you have an excellent foundation with your two top-notch GMII zooms, and in terms of the wide options there are so many ways you can go in E mount and in my mind no one ‘right’ answer, rather several potential ‘correct’ answers depending on personal preference. Some use and love the 12-24/2.8GM and consider that an essential part of the holy trinity to match what you have. At the other end of price and size/weight is the 16-35/4PZ which I do carry and find it plenty good enough for me at typical landscape apertures, and the light weight is a joy. I do also have a Sigma 14-24/2.8 for certain uses and that has been tested extremely well against some primes in its range. The Sony 16/1.8 has intrigued me for its simplicity, but there are compositions I make on occasion where I need that 17-23mm range. As part of my journey to use and test many E mount options (most bought used here on FM and resold if not keeping, so little to no loss) I have also owned the original 16-35/2.8GM and GMII, and I felt both were quite fine and could easily do the job. Not to be overlooked is the Tamron 16-30/2.8, I have not yet used it but did use their previous 17-28 and they make very solid performers at great prices. Others have recommened the Sony 16-25/2.8 which appears to be a nice balance of speed, range, size/weight, and price.
I agree with Dan and Jeffrey about being able to put to good use a very wide range of focal lengths for landscape photography. I always have from 14 or 16mm on up to 400-500mm in my pack on my landscape trips and I ‘see’ with all of them, but less so with the ultrawides and more so with the telephotos due to my more selective personal vision for landscapes. I also agree with Dan’s approach in first selecting the perspective that best gives me the view I want for a given subject, and once at that exact spot using a zoom to fine tune the exact composition. I still own a set of fantastic primes in the f/1.8 to f/1.2 range and use those at times for astro or non-landscape use, and I recognize that for some photographers here primes-only is what they prefer and use for their landscape work.
Below are images from the 16-35PZ, 16-35GMII, Sigma 14-24, Viltrox 16/1.8 (wide open), and for fun the Sigma 500.
Jan 20, 2026 at 12:40 PM
Previous versions of Ross Martin's message #16970922 « Prime lens or zoom lens for landscape? »
