[mikeSF]

Just make sure you actually want to go that wide.

12 is just absurdly wide.

15 I find almost too wide in many situations.

17 is plenty wide and you can make it work for a lot of situations.

In other words, instead of dropping a lot of money on the 12-24 just to fill in the numbers, consider less wide lenses. the the range below 20mm on ASP-C is pretty specialized, and generally less useful than above 20mm.

the 12-24 is also weakest in this range (above 20mm). It's still good, but at that point it's significantly less sharp than the DA 15 or 21.

E.g., the suggestion of the Tamron 17-50 is a good one because you could actually sell your 28mm and just stick with the zoom. It would really kill it for landscapes.

you make a good point. none of us can know for sure what kind of scenes you plan to be shooting, but i tend to only very occasionally need to go wider than 28mm, except for more special effect type shots. You can get all kinds of distortion that skews your verticals and stretches out your perimeter at 12mm so you must be careful not to introduce distracting such elements to your composition. and the performance at the longer end on the 12-24 falls off, so i'd probably only use it at the wide end and then pop on my 24 or 28 primes for that range. YMMV of course.

I'm not much of a zoom guy...even the few zooms i've owned have usually remained at one FL for as long as I've used them. I have no problem popping primes on and off several times while shooting, unless it is very windy (dusty) or raining.

good luck and when in doubt, buy 'em both!

[NaClH2O]

I get a LOT of use out of my FA 20-35 f/4.0 for landscapes. It scores as high as the much regarded DA 12-24 (which I also own) in our lens database (9.25 vs 9.26 for the 12-24)
Why do I like it? Small, light, most excellent color rendition (better than my 12-24 IMO) very good contrast. Easy to manual focus and a very good close focuser. I also love the zoom range, it is right in the middle of my preferred shooting range of 17-50 (btw the tamron 17-50 is also a very good landscape performer). Besides it's cheaper than the 12-24. I would say that the two biggest faults of the lens are it's relatively slow at f/4.0 and it's kinda hard to find.





NaCl(it's my favorite garden lens)H2O

[Pentaxor]

How much I need the extra wideness I'm not sure, since I've never had it (other than a while ago with the 18-55 kit). But I would like to have something wider than 28mm. I guess if I can get my Tamron fixed, the 12-24 would be a perfect supplement to it; then I'd have 12-100 covered pretty good (with only 25-27 and 76-99 missing). I think whether I buy a 15 or 12-24 will just depend on which I find a good deal on first. I still really want a DA* or Limited lens (for weather sealing/SDM, and awesomeness value), but I'm not sure how much I could justify buying either if I got the 12-24 and got the 28-75 fixed.

if this was the case, then the 12-24 would be a nice addition. having a 17-50 would be giving more redundancy considering the 28-50 focal length is already well covered by your Tamron.

my main uses for the 12-24 are for group shots, close-ups, tight quarters, indoors, architectures at close proximity. the extra wideness though is a luxury for panoramic shots. less stitching to do.

[crimson_penguin]

You guys make some compelling points. I'd like to cover the super wide range, but... maybe it's not quite worth $400-700 or whatever. I'm starting to think maybe I should go for this - it's only $80 cheaper than buying them all on Amazon, but... I'll be in Toronto next weekend, and so there wouldn't be any shipping or tax or anything. It would be a really nice set, especially if I also had my 28-75mm fixed.

[paperbag846]

You guys make some compelling points. I'd like to cover the super wide range, but... maybe it's not quite worth $400-700 or whatever. I'm starting to think maybe I should go for this - it's only $80 cheaper than buying them all on Amazon, but... I'll be in Toronto next weekend, and so there wouldn't be any shipping or tax or anything. It would be a really nice set, especially if I also had my 28-75mm fixed.

I tried to talk that guy down, no dice.

I'm not sure you are getting much of a deal from him.

You could track each lens individually down on the used market and save hundreds, trust me.

That said, the 21 is apparently a very good landscape lens. I find the 40 to be a stellar one because it is so colorful and sharp. The 70 is also the best portrait lens I have had the pleasure of using.

[crimson_penguin]

Yeah, I guess you're right; I'd really be paying a lot for just "getting it all right now", and I don't need it all right now. It would also be a bit silly, if I got my 28-75 Tamron fixed; the 40 and 70 would already be covered pretty well. Maybe the best would be fix the 28-75, get either the 21 or 15, and the DA* 50-135...

[Jewelltrail]

Yeah, I guess you're right; I'd really be paying a lot for just "getting it all right now", and I don't need it all right now. It would also be a bit silly, if I got my 28-75 Tamron fixed; the 40 and 70 would already be covered pretty well. Maybe the best would be fix the 28-75, get either the 21 or 15, and the DA* 50-135...

I would get the 28-75 fixed & shoot landscapes with it. Then, after that, if you see a need for wider, go for it. I assure you: the 28-75 wil do stunning landscapes for you. The 28-75 is amazingly versatile too, will do great indoor portraits even, with nice bokeh.

[civiletti]

A variety of focal lengths can be useful for landscape. To a great extent, it's a matter of learning to see compositions at various angles of view. 18-70mm is the easy visualization range for most people, I think; but subject and point of view can expand that quite a bit.

This image was made at 8mm in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon.

[civiletti]

At the other extreme, this image is at 300mm above Short Sands Beach at Oswald West State Park, Oregon:

[crimson_penguin]

I would get the 28-75 fixed & shoot landscapes with it. Then, after that, if you see a need for wider, go for it. I assure you: the 28-75 wil do stunning landscapes for you. The 28-75 is amazingly versatile too, will do great indoor portraits even, with nice bokeh.

Waait a second, are you suggesting... not buying any lenses? That's preposterous! Seriously though, you're probably mostly right, except that I won't be able to buy any new lenses if I see the need while I'm on the road, and that's my biggest reason for wanting to be set up for landscapes. So maybe I should just get the 15 or 21 and leave it at that... and the DA* 300?

[mikeSF]

I would get the 28-75 fixed & shoot landscapes with it. Then, after that, if you see a need for wider, go for it. I assure you: the 28-75 wil do stunning landscapes for you. The 28-75 is amazingly versatile too, will do great indoor portraits even, with nice bokeh.

wait! You are suggesting having just a single lens to do everything?! where's the fun in that? settle down people, jeweltrail didn't really mean that. Please carry on with your LBA.

[paperbag846]

With the 28-75, one could throw in a DA 21 or 15 in the mix later on for the times you are itching for wide.

[Duplo]

Well there is a lot to be said about landscape photography and the lenses to go with it.

IMHO it very much depend on what you want with your landscape images and how you like to shoot.

You will often hear the famous mantra:

landscape = ultra Wide angle

(14-24mm in 35mm terms), but it is not really true.
The range can be excellent for landscapes:
(nikon D3 and nikkor 14-24/2.8 @14mm)


But it also has an amazing ability to include everything adn that is not necessarily a good thing, at least to me landscapes is for a large part about simplicity, shape, light and composition.
The simplicity bit in particular is very difficult with ultra wide angle and requires a lot of work.

In my personal experience the best landscape lens is one that has a focal length or range of focal length that works well with how one see things. A lens that makes you "connect" with your surroundings.

Formost people these focal lengths are somwhat longer... For me personally I resonate really really well with the the regular wide angle range of 28-35mm in 35mm terms or 18 - 24mm range on APS-C, with my sweetspot in the middle of the range.
An example from the K-7 and DA21ltd, from a trip to Arches NP:


Now the long normal to short tele range is another often overlooked range.
that is extremely useful for landscape photography, especially when working in areas that are very large, It provides a sweet balance between forground and background elements andhelts retaining simplicity and balanced compositions
Here an example from theFA43ltd mounted on the K-7 from a trip to Nerlerit Inaat:



The tele range should not be forgotten either, It can be highly efficient as a landscape too., either to compress huge scenes in to simple and efficient compositions as in this example shot at 135mm on a nikon D3 at the Ilulissat Icefiord:


The telerange is extremely useful to pick out details, shapes, textures and colour in landscape settings,asseen in thisveryrecent sample shot with theFA77 on a k-7 in Ittoqqortoormiit Fiord:


Above images may not be perfect samples, but theywere what I was able to quickly find in my online galleries.

What really matters when selecting lenses in these ranges is their performance and I tend to look primarily at the lens renderings
Renderings is to me how the lens "draws" the image to the sensor.
As I print large and have clients looking for largish prints I tend to look at how they render when stopped well down, as I need it to get sufficient DOF.
Next comes the middle range of f5.6-f8 and finally the larger than f5.6 range.

Generally lenses with good contrast (micro contrast in particular), colour accuracy and tonality are preferred.

Resolution is another important thing to look at, you want a lens that is sharp enough, but it does not have to be razor sharp wide open IMHO.

How the lens handles bright lightsources in the frame is very important too. Occantionally you want the sun or orther bright light sources in the frame and just outside the frame.
Primes tend to do better than zooms here. As an example The DA*16-50 is a particular poor lens in this regard, below is an example from teh DA*16-50 on the K-7 of what I do not want from a landscape lens:


Bottom line is that there are a lot of excellent lenses out there for landscape photography, IMHO primes are generally preferred IQ wise:
Thus any of the limiteds, the Zeiss ZK range, the DA14, A and FA*24 will all be excellent landscape primes As will likely a whole host of M42 and other K, M, A, F and FA lenses.

The lenses that stands out to me is the DA21 and FA43 though, they are without a doubt my most used lenses for landscapes.

A long winded reply but hopefully it made sense.

[mikeSF]

great post!!

[Ron Kruger]

Yes, Thomas. That was a good post with good illustrations to back it up.
Most of my favorite scenic shots are at 15mm, but some are at 100mm too.