Posted by Dan Harbour on April 1, 2011 at 12:25 PM
I want to dabble in landscape photography. I am very much an amateur and want to try it for fun. Plus it is another excuse to get out and enjoy the outdoors. I live in Montana and would have Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks in which to play, plus a few badlands in the eastern part of the state.
I have a nikon D90 which of course has a dx (cropped)sensor. I currently have a 300f4 telephoto, and the 18-105 kit lens.
I want to purchase one lens with a budget under $1000.
I have been looking at the tokina 11-16, tokina 12-24, and sigma 10-20.
Is this a good range, or am I going too wide. Are there other lenses I must consider.
Any comments or suggestions you might want to post would be appreciated.
I shoot 95% landscapes and use the Tokina 12-24 and have been very pleased. Extremely well built, sharp, and has good contrast. Not quite as good as the Nikon 12-24 as per the reviews, but still excellent. I understand the Tokina 11-16 is very good as well.
Posted by Scott Snyder on April 1, 2011 at 1:16 PM
i also shoot with the tokina 12-24 and am quite happy. better can certainly be had, but this is probably the best bang for the buck.
I just recently purchased the Tokina 12-24mm F4 for my wife and she absolutely loves it. We both shoot with a D80, so the crop would take it to 16-36mm but the results are fantastic.
Troy
www.openspacesphotography.com
I've used the Sigma 10-20 lens with a Canon cropped sensor camera and really liked the quality.
The Tokina 12-24 lens gets deservedly high praise, but a 2mm difference in a wide angle lens is quite a bit, as you can see in the example above.
You can find some user reviews and real world lens tests of those lenses here. He compares them to Canon lenses, but that isn't any concern.
How about a lens somewhere between 105 an 300? The reason I say this is you might want to 'extract' some piece of a scene to make the composition tighter on a main subject where the 105 is too wide and 300 is too long (and heavy).
Additionally, superwide angle lenses will make that imposing mountain look like a bump on a ridge, assuming you want the mountain to be more prominent in the photo. Another issue has to with uneven sky tone when using a polarizer. Don't get me wrong, superwides have their place in the toolbox, but if you are just learning landscape photography, a longer lens may make the process somewhat easier.
Right now, I have only one landscape lens and that is the Nikkor 16-85 VR on my D300. Light, sharp and affordable. For me it has enough wide angle and telephoto range to be a nice hiking all purpose lens. I use to own the Tokina 12-24 and thought that was an excellent lens as well. You will find a lot of good feedback on both of these lenses. It really depends on what range you think you might be doing most of your landscape photography..... wide, middle range or longer.
Thanks so much for the comments so far. I think I need to clarify my question.
I am not thinking of a new lens to cover outside the range of the 18-105 kit lens. I am more thinking of a lens for a dx sensor, with good bang for the buck, that I would use as a beginner in landscape, and would be a step up from the kit lens.
Perhaps I am thinking too wide.
A related question might be, what focal lengths do you most often use in landscape photography?
How about a used Nikon 12-24mm f/4? I bought one from a Craigslist ad for $700 and am quite happy with this lens.
Depending on your shooting style and subject interest however, you might also consider something in the 70-200 or 80-200 range. I was able to purchase the last generation Nikon 80-200/2.8 for something like $900 and find it to be very sharp and a wonderful lens. Not as fast AF and no VR like the latest 70-200mm version, but for tripod-mounted landscape work it is just fine.
I've got the Nikon 12-24 and my wife has the Sigma 10-20. Interesting enough at less than half the price the Sigma beats the pants off the Nikon for sharpness, color rendition, lack of distortion and contrast. If I was Nikon I would be embarrassed! The increase in coverage between 12mm and 10mm is rather startling, too.
I also use the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-120mm f/4G ED VR Zoom Lens with the f/4 max aperture that doesn't vary as you zoom. Ideal lenses for landscape photography depend a lot on your eye, your subject and your location, but I find the 24-120 fills my needs about 90% of the time.
Budget? Buy a vintage 28 mm f2/8 manual Nikkor. Reviews are available online.
Will give you a feel for landscape, great DOF. Minimal "keystone" effect. I think the optics are as good or better than anything out there [primes are best anyway]. Probably in the $250 range.
I've used one for a long time. Be sure to shoot some test shots. I had one bad lens [28 mm f/2 if I recall] which I returned [e-bay].
I own a D90 and kit lens too. After taking several shots and doing some sharpness tests, I found that the kit 18-105 is not good at all. Probably the best apertures are between f/5.6 and f/8.0. But I wanted something better. I did some "research" (forums) and finally decided on the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8. I'm impressed with the results. It's tack sharp, it's well built. It has great reviews on the net, also on Rockwell's website. The zoom range is a little short, but this means the lens was built with sharpness / performance in mind, and not convenience (and poor image quality).
The only con so far is some overexposure (about 1-2 stops). But some people say it's the nature of ultra wide-angle lenses. If someone knows if this is true, and why this is true, please share with us :)
Cheers!
Posted by Mark Stahlke on April 2, 2011 at 12:03 PM
The only con so far is some overexposure (about 1-2 stops). But some people say it's the nature of ultra wide-angle lenses. If someone knows if this is true, and why this is true, please share with us
There is nothing in the nature of ultra-wide angle lenses that would cause over exposure. The exposure is controlled by aperture, shutter speed and ISO. The lens focal length is not a factor.
There are a couple of things that might superficially appear to be over exposure.
The first is light fall-off. This should manifest itself as darkening in the corners. If the lens has a lot of fall-off then matrix metering might be trying to compensate for it. The meter might be over exposing in the center to bring up the exposure in the corners. Try center weighted or spot metering and see what happens.
The second thing is lens flare. If you're not using a good lens shade you may be getting a lot of flare from non image forming light hitting the front lens element. This usually shows up as a lack of contrast but it might look like over exposure at first glance. A good lens shade is the best way to prevent lens flare.
To the question of why are people suggesting a long focal length for landscapes: because that the best focal length to shoot landscapes with - none of that silly wide angle stuff!
Seriously, a lot of it really depends on the shooting style and what you do. For me personally, my favorite landscape lenses are the 70-200 and for years before buying that zoom, a 180 macro lens. I own the Canon 17-40 which I find to be an extradinarily difficult lens to compose with, whether at the short or long end or a full frame or cropped sensor camera. It is just the way I photographically see the world.
To the OP original question, the longer focal lengths were to open up other compositional choices, since he already had a short focal length zoom. The clarification as to why Dan wanted to replace that lens helps to understand his question - thanks for that post.
I'd suggest the long lens choice instead, but I both understand the desire to upgrade the lens and my personal photographic biases have been stated above.
I am not a pro landscape shooter, I am a general practitioner when it comes to nature photography. But my go to lens is a Sigma 17-70 2.8 to 4.5. I use a Canon 30D with 1.6 crop factor and that makes the lens a 28-112mm (35mm equivalent). The lens is tack sharp, not to heavy a good all purpose range and it also has a macro capabilities which comes in handy on occasion. Mine is the non-OS version. I don't know about the performance of the OS version. Plus the price is not to bad. Just my two cents.
"A related question might be, what focal lengths do you most often use in landscape photography?"
In a nutshell, I use the lens that gives me the perspective that supports my vizualization. If the scene requires a wide angle lens, that is what I will use. If the scene requires a longer lens, I will use one.
For example, I might use a wide angle lens and a lower camera angle to accentuate leading lines or objects in the foreground. In some cases, I will use a longer lens to extract a portion of a grand scene that has elements that I do not want to show, or to compress the perspective.
Since I shoot 4x5, I'll give the equivalent 35mm full frame focal length of my lenses and the (rough) percentage of use.
The bottom line is, determine which lens is needed, as opposed to which lens you wish you needed. I suggest that anyone beginning their landscape photography journey to consider renting or borrowing lenses of various focal lengths, make photographs with them and then evaluate how well they work for one's personal vision.
--P
Posted by Kent Staubus on April 3, 2011 at 1:49 PM
I had the Sigma 10-20mm and it was good. I sold it for the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8. As a night shooter, I really needed the speed. Be aware that ultrawides have a learning curve to them. If you are thinking you just find a big wide scene and take a simple shot, that generally doesn't work very well.
Just got around to reading this thread today. What wonderful advice all of you have given. Yes, landscape photography does not not mean wide angle lens, but wide angle lens have a place in landscape photography. I shoot with both a Nikon D300 and D7000. DX is a really good format for landscape, since the crop is around 1.5x. I use an old Nikon 70-300 (No VR, but can still be found for a small price), but very sharp even at 300mm, an 18-200 for middle distances and a Tokina 11-16 for width (also a great environmental portrait lens). The Tokina is the sharpest of these lens. I also use 3 primes, a 28mm f2.8, a 50mm f1.4, and a 105mm f2.5, but find I use the zooms more often. It seems to me that Dan is right looking for a wide angle lens to add to his present lens. He will need all of them depending on what he is shooting that day. All the lens mentioned can work, read the reviews, you have good photographers recommending all of them so deciding which to buy will be hard. Good luck, let us know what you decide.
Very nice discussion. I appreciate all the advice. It seems that a wide variety of focal lengths are used in landscape, not just the wide angles. I will have to re think my lens choices. I am now considering the sigma 17-70, and the nikon 16-85. I like the idea of macro with the sigma.
I think either would be a significant improvement over the 18-105 nikon kit lens. Do you agree?
Posted by Jeff Loomis on April 3, 2011 at 11:06 PM
Since you mention Yellowstone and Glacier, another approach might be to browse the images on this site and find some images from these places that look like the types of shots you want to take. Then read the specs to see what focal was used.
The flip side is to look at images shot with a wide angle lens and see if you like the results. Or take the lens you already own and set to 18mm and frame a few shots. Is that too wide, not wide enough, or just about right? The bottom line is 'wide angle' is not synonymous with 'landscape'. You can get some expansive views, but it will affect the relative scale of objects in the scene. Before making a purchase, it would pay to identify the style of shots you're after (and thus the most useful focal length). Then start shopping...
Posted by Dan Roberts on April 4, 2011 at 12:44 AM
Since you're just getting into landscapes, why not make a few outings with your existing 18-105 and see which focal lengths you end up using most. As you can tell from some of the feedback, there is more than one way to make landscape images. Also, nowadays with the ability to stitch images into panos, a longer lens taking multiple images stitched produce some amazing mountain panoramas. I've been shooting a Nikon 16-85 on a D300 and rarely shoot wider than 20mm. But that is my particular style of landscape photography. And as mentioned by another poster, I typically shoot mountain images between 50-200mm.
That said, I see many images posted by folks using really wide lenses and they are awesome. Based on my experience that is definately skill that takes some practice. Our eyes don't naturally see in that sort of perspective
Posted by Kent Staubus on April 4, 2011 at 8:32 AM
I don't think any lens is going to have any significant improvement over what you have. I doubt you'll see much difference. At least, that's been my own experience. Here's why. All modern lenses are pretty sharp at f8, and that's where you shoot landscapes. The more expensive lenses are expensive because they can shoot at f2.8. They don't perform any better at f8. I found this out myself in Iceland. My main lens is the Nikon 17-55mm f2.8, a thousand dollar lens. I lost my 77mm polarizer on the trip, and started shooting with my back up lens, the Nikon 18-55mm VR lens, a hundred dollar lens. I had a 52mm polarizer for it. I figured I'd get better shots from a $100 lens with a polarizer than a $1,000 lens without one, and I was right. I can't tell the difference between shots made with the lenses. I'm currently using a 140 year old lens on my 4x5. It's fairly primitive. I'm still getting some nice shots with it.
Bottom line is don't obsess over gear. If there are shots you want to take but find you can't with the gear you have, carefully consider what will do the job. The most important thing about landscape photography, actually ALL photography, is to learn how to see and use Light. That's the whole thing. A lens won't do that for you. Study Light. Learn it, recognize it, know how to use it effectively. Obsess over light.
"You can learn a lot from traveling around Iceland with a photographer. He talks about Light. He's constantly preoccupied with Light."
--Unnur Jokulsdottir
Kent in SD
Posted by Basil Greber on April 4, 2011 at 5:08 PM
I'm with Kent on this one. I think you'll be hard pressed to notice any real difference between a 18-105 DX and a 16-85 DX or 17-70 DC in a landscape setting. Really. I used the 18-105 DX's predecessor, the 18-135 DX, for quite a while, and while it had its limitations, that thing was wickedly sharp, and it gave me some great results. The 18-105 DX VR is better still, supposedly. Well, bottom line: Try what you have, it's quite good at those focal lengths. If you feel that you need a wider lens, well, I can understand that - the Nikon 12-24/4 DX is probably my most used lens. But I don't think a 1:1 replacement of your lens will dramatically improve things...
I don't have a really wide angle zoom. So I can't comment on that. I have only one lens, the Nikon 18-70mm it was a kit lens at one time, but I bought it separate. I can't imagine not having any focal length beyond 24mm. I'd love to have the 12-24, but if could only have one lens, I'd go with what I have, or the newer16-85. I have used this lens for every shot I've taken the last 6 years! I agree, for landscapes that are stopped down, it doesn't require a $1,000.00 or more 2.8 lens. If you are going to shoot between f/8 and f/16 most of the time, I think you should buy the lens that suits your style and subject matter. If you want to shoot low and wide, then of course the 10-20 and 12-24 focal lengths are the way to go. If you want a little more versatility, then a medium zoom like the 16-85 might be a better choice.
Chris
Posted by Doug Koepsel on April 7, 2011 at 10:42 PM
I started about 3 years ago with the D90 and 18-105. I noticed for landscape that the 18mm was not wide enough for some shots, so I picked up the Tokina 12-24. I used the Tokina often for the foreground wildflowers in the San Juans of Colorado this past summer. Figuring that I wanted a lens sharper than the 18-105 kit, I purchased the Nikon 16-35. It is now covering about 95% of my landscape needs. I do notice the extra 2mm of the 16-35 on the wide end over the 18-105. Recently, my tripod toppled and the 18-105's plastic mount broke, so I am looking for a different lens.
Based on the reviews I have read for my lens search, one option for you may be to sell the 18-105 and couple its $ with your budget to get the Nikon 16-85 and the 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR (and use it in its sharper range of 70-200)
I use a Sigma 10-20 (Sigma AF 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM) with my Canon D500 T1i cropped sensor. I get great results for landscapes. The Sigma lens is of good quality and I like the clarity better than my other Canon lenses (Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS and Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS ).
For some great in-depth reviews of many different lenses, I would check http://www.photozone.de if I were buying a lens right now.
Also, when shooting landscapes I do hyperfocal focusing to get great depth of field (DOF) so I would recommend the DOF calculator site at http://www.dofmaster.com.
I have the tokina 12-24 f4 and agree with others that for the money it's an awesome value. the lens that gets the most work is my Sigma 24-70. It's also a super sharp and well built. Ask yourself what kind of lanscapes you want to shoot. If you're going after the grand vistas often a longer lens is the right choice. If you're shooting more intimate scenes such as streams, waterfalls etc. then I prefer the wider glass. I cary a full range of 12mm to 300mm for my cropped sensor nikon.
Discussion
28 repliesI have a nikon D90 which of course has a dx (cropped)sensor. I currently have a 300f4 telephoto, and the 18-105 kit lens.
I want to purchase one lens with a budget under $1000.
I have been looking at the tokina 11-16, tokina 12-24, and sigma 10-20.
Is this a good range, or am I going too wide. Are there other lenses I must consider.
Any comments or suggestions you might want to post would be appreciated.
Troy
www.openspacesphotography.com
The Tokina 12-24 lens gets deservedly high praise, but a 2mm difference in a wide angle lens is quite a bit, as you can see in the example above.
You can find some user reviews and real world lens tests of those lenses here. He compares them to Canon lenses, but that isn't any concern.
Additionally, superwide angle lenses will make that imposing mountain look like a bump on a ridge, assuming you want the mountain to be more prominent in the photo. Another issue has to with uneven sky tone when using a polarizer. Don't get me wrong, superwides have their place in the toolbox, but if you are just learning landscape photography, a longer lens may make the process somewhat easier.
Just my 0.002
--P
I am not thinking of a new lens to cover outside the range of the 18-105 kit lens. I am more thinking of a lens for a dx sensor, with good bang for the buck, that I would use as a beginner in landscape, and would be a step up from the kit lens.
Perhaps I am thinking too wide.
A related question might be, what focal lengths do you most often use in landscape photography?
Depending on your shooting style and subject interest however, you might also consider something in the 70-200 or 80-200 range. I was able to purchase the last generation Nikon 80-200/2.8 for something like $900 and find it to be very sharp and a wonderful lens. Not as fast AF and no VR like the latest 70-200mm version, but for tripod-mounted landscape work it is just fine.
I also use the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-120mm f/4G ED VR Zoom Lens with the f/4 max aperture that doesn't vary as you zoom. Ideal lenses for landscape photography depend a lot on your eye, your subject and your location, but I find the 24-120 fills my needs about 90% of the time.
Budget? Buy a vintage 28 mm f2/8 manual Nikkor. Reviews are available online.
Will give you a feel for landscape, great DOF. Minimal "keystone" effect. I think the optics are as good or better than anything out there [primes are best anyway]. Probably in the $250 range.
I've used one for a long time. Be sure to shoot some test shots. I had one bad lens [28 mm f/2 if I recall] which I returned [e-bay].
I own a D90 and kit lens too. After taking several shots and doing some sharpness tests, I found that the kit 18-105 is not good at all. Probably the best apertures are between f/5.6 and f/8.0. But I wanted something better. I did some "research" (forums) and finally decided on the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8. I'm impressed with the results. It's tack sharp, it's well built. It has great reviews on the net, also on Rockwell's website. The zoom range is a little short, but this means the lens was built with sharpness / performance in mind, and not convenience (and poor image quality).
The only con so far is some overexposure (about 1-2 stops). But some people say it's the nature of ultra wide-angle lenses. If someone knows if this is true, and why this is true, please share with us :)
Cheers!
There are a couple of things that might superficially appear to be over exposure.
The first is light fall-off. This should manifest itself as darkening in the corners. If the lens has a lot of fall-off then matrix metering might be trying to compensate for it. The meter might be over exposing in the center to bring up the exposure in the corners. Try center weighted or spot metering and see what happens.
The second thing is lens flare. If you're not using a good lens shade you may be getting a lot of flare from non image forming light hitting the front lens element. This usually shows up as a lack of contrast but it might look like over exposure at first glance. A good lens shade is the best way to prevent lens flare.
Seriously, a lot of it really depends on the shooting style and what you do. For me personally, my favorite landscape lenses are the 70-200 and for years before buying that zoom, a 180 macro lens. I own the Canon 17-40 which I find to be an extradinarily difficult lens to compose with, whether at the short or long end or a full frame or cropped sensor camera. It is just the way I photographically see the world.
To the OP original question, the longer focal lengths were to open up other compositional choices, since he already had a short focal length zoom. The clarification as to why Dan wanted to replace that lens helps to understand his question - thanks for that post.
I'd suggest the long lens choice instead, but I both understand the desire to upgrade the lens and my personal photographic biases have been stated above.
In a nutshell, I use the lens that gives me the perspective that supports my vizualization. If the scene requires a wide angle lens, that is what I will use. If the scene requires a longer lens, I will use one.
For example, I might use a wide angle lens and a lower camera angle to accentuate leading lines or objects in the foreground. In some cases, I will use a longer lens to extract a portion of a grand scene that has elements that I do not want to show, or to compress the perspective.
Since I shoot 4x5, I'll give the equivalent 35mm full frame focal length of my lenses and the (rough) percentage of use.
90mm Nikkor=28mm (Full frame 35mm)...2%
135mm Fujinon=44mm...8%
180mm Fujinon=58mm...10%
210mm Schneider=67mm...40%
300mm Nikkor=96mm...40%
The bottom line is, determine which lens is needed, as opposed to which lens you wish you needed. I suggest that anyone beginning their landscape photography journey to consider renting or borrowing lenses of various focal lengths, make photographs with them and then evaluate how well they work for one's personal vision.
--P
Kent in SD
I think either would be a significant improvement over the 18-105 nikon kit lens. Do you agree?
The flip side is to look at images shot with a wide angle lens and see if you like the results. Or take the lens you already own and set to 18mm and frame a few shots. Is that too wide, not wide enough, or just about right? The bottom line is 'wide angle' is not synonymous with 'landscape'. You can get some expansive views, but it will affect the relative scale of objects in the scene. Before making a purchase, it would pay to identify the style of shots you're after (and thus the most useful focal length). Then start shopping...
That said, I see many images posted by folks using really wide lenses and they are awesome. Based on my experience that is definately skill that takes some practice. Our eyes don't naturally see in that sort of perspective
Bottom line is don't obsess over gear. If there are shots you want to take but find you can't with the gear you have, carefully consider what will do the job. The most important thing about landscape photography, actually ALL photography, is to learn how to see and use Light. That's the whole thing. A lens won't do that for you. Study Light. Learn it, recognize it, know how to use it effectively. Obsess over light.
"You can learn a lot from traveling around Iceland with a photographer. He talks about Light. He's constantly preoccupied with Light."
--Unnur Jokulsdottir
Kent in SD
Chris
Based on the reviews I have read for my lens search, one option for you may be to sell the 18-105 and couple its $ with your budget to get the Nikon 16-85 and the 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR (and use it in its sharper range of 70-200)
For some great in-depth reviews of many different lenses, I would check http://www.photozone.de if I were buying a lens right now.
Also, when shooting landscapes I do hyperfocal focusing to get great depth of field (DOF) so I would recommend the DOF calculator site at http://www.dofmaster.com.
I hope this helps somewhat. Good luck to you.