[ArtyDiana]

Hey I m a landscape photographer and I would like to know what are the best wide angle lens for a Pentax.

Also any cheap good wide angle lens you guys suggest?

Thanks in advance =)

[Adam]

Best
Pentax smc Pentax FA 31mm f/1.8 Limited (Black) 20290 B&H Photo

Cheapest
21987 Pentax SMCP-DA 35mm f/2.4 AL Wide Angle Auto Focus Lens

[RioRico]

"Cheap", "good", and "wide angle" are mutually exclusive.

First, consider that most published 'scape photos were shot in a focal range equivalent to 18-55mm on APS-C. So a good 17-50mm or 16-45mm zoom covers that range. Next, consider that ultra-wide-angle (UWA) lenses are good for tight spaces, not big spaces. They make the distant recede, so mountains become molehills and urban skylines become ragged bumps. A good way to deal with this is to stitch panoramas: shoot a series of portrait-mode (vertical) images with a 28-30mm lens (for least distortion), and stitch them together.

If those answers don't appeal to you, I'll recommend the Tamron 10-24 -- UWA for tight spaces on the short end, good for slightly stretched 'scapes on the long end. Others may recommend the DA12-24 or a Sigma 10-20; I find the Tamron more flexible. It also costs less, and has a long warranty. Whatever you decide to buy, be sure the seller has a no-questions return+refund policy in case 1) it's a bad copy, 2) it doesn't meet your needs, or 3) you just don't like it. Good luck!

EDIT:

Best: Pentax smc Pentax FA 31mm f/1.8 Limited
Cheapest: Pentax SMCP-DA 35mm f/2.4 AL Wide Angle Auto Focus Lens

But Adam, neither of those are wide. They're normal and long-normal.

[ArtyDiana]

Awesome ! Thanks for replying to my post. I will definitely check them out and decide which one to get.

[abacus07]

there are a lot of excellent choices out there for Pentax. It really depends on budget, size, zoom/prime, max aperture and IQ preferences.

Primes
Pentax DA14/2.8 - it's fast but it's also the size of a zoom
Pentax DA15/4 - this is an excellent lens and it's compact for hiking
Samyang - 14mm/2.8 (IIRC) - MF and fast and big
Zenitar 16mm - MF fisheye (can be defished) and probably the cheapest

Zooms - all of these are excellent
sigma 10-20
Tamron 10-24
Pentax 12-24
Sigma 8-16

I'll buy the DA15 someday because it's small and uses 49mm filters. They are much cheaper than 67-77mm filters that most of the other lenses use and I already own a set.

Or you could buy a 16-50, 17-70, 16-45, etc zoom that does WA.

[twitch]

The DA15 is the "best" wide angle lens available for Pentax. It's far superior (@15mm) to the DA 12-24 which is probably considered second best. This is my view after shooting literally thousands of images with both lenses.

[Frogfish]

Sorry but I categorically disagree with every lens recommendation above (except maybe Adam's - but the 31 is damn expensive and there are equally good options from Leica, Nikon, Zeiss, Voigtlander etc., after simple, non-destructive and reversible conversions that you don't have to do yourself, for much less money) !

Rio nails it in his dialogue but not lens recommendations. If you are a landscape tog then you need a 24-30mm lens to avoid as much distortion as possible, for wide landscapes you do as RR suggested, take more shots (at least 33% - 50% overlapping) and stitch. My landscape lens is a Contax Zeiss 28/2.8 (superb MF lens costing about US$350 used) - however the MF bit you can almost completely disregard since it is shooting at infinity from 2.5 - 3m onwards (meaning everything is in focus and you don't need to adjust it at all once set) !

If you want a lens for landscapes then those are the types of lens you should be looking at and never wiiiiiiide lenses since the distortion is going to be impossible to correct 100% (and as Rio said they push your subjects much further away than you'd like) no matter which lens profile correction software you are using.

[Frogfish]

The DA15 is the "best" wide angle lens available for Pentax. It's far superior (@15mm) to the DA 12-24 which is probably considered second best. This is my view after shooting literally thousands of images with both lenses.

I am in love with the 15 Ltd Twitch .. but categorically not for landscapes !
..

[abacus07]

How do you know that the OP doesn't already have a 24-35mm primary landscape lens. She asked about wide angle and said that she does landscapes.

I'll agree that a landscape lens shouldn't be a primary landscape lens but there are still a lot of times that I need one. There are times that I simply cannot back up. But most of the time I don't need a wide angle because it creates a lot of boring space in the photo. And it's not unusual that I'm running around with a fast fifty for landscapes (and now the DA40).

[RioRico]

OP asked for 1) the best wideangles, and 2) good cheap wideangles. She didn't specify that the wideangle must be for landscapes. Various above have suggested some of the best. Some of us tried to suggest the cheapest -- Tamron 10-24 for AF zoom, Zenitar 16/2.8 for MF prime -- and I rather like my used Tokina 21/3.8, Kiron 24/2, and Komine 28/2 CFWA, but these aren't so wide.

So before we can make more meaningful suggestions, I think we need to know:

* How wide is wide?
* How cheap is cheap?
* For 'scapes, or what?
* Zooms or primes?

ArtyDiana, what do you need?

[Frogfish]

How do you know that the OP doesn't already have a 24-35mm primary landscape lens. She asked about wide angle and said that she does landscapes.

I'll agree that a landscape lens shouldn't be a primary landscape lens but there are still a lot of times that I need one. There are times that I simply cannot back up. But most of the time I don't need a wide angle because it creates a lot of boring space in the photo. And it's not unusual that I'm running around with a fast fifty for landscapes (and now the DA40).

I don't of course - but I answered the question posed without trying to second guess.

Any virtually distortion free lens can be used for landscapes .... I've read of people using 90/100mm lenses so your DA40 / FA50 should be good lenses if having good border resolution and low distortion.

[Frogfish]

OP asked for 1) the best wideangles, and 2) good cheap wideangles. She didn't specify that the wideangle must be for landscapes. Various above have suggested some of the best. Some of us tried to suggest the cheapest -- Tamron 10-24 for AF zoom, Zenitar 16/2.8 for MF prime -- and I rather like my used Tokina 21/3.8, Kiron 24/2, and Komine 28/2 CFWA, but these aren't so wide.

So before we can make more meaningful suggestions, I think we need to know:

* How wide is wide?
* How cheap is cheap?
* For 'scapes, or what?
* Zooms or primes?

ArtyDiana, what do you need?

Your Q list is what is needed of course to be more precise in responding to Diana. However what else are we supposed to surmise from her initial post :-

Hey I m a landscape photographer and I would like to know what are the best wide angle lens for a Pentax.

- I concluded she is looking for a WA lens for landscapes !

[RioRico]

I concluded she is looking for a WA lens for landscapes !

Possible but ambiguous. I looked at what she wrote, not what we assumed she meant. It's my old programmer-analyst training, for building software products based on notes scribbled on the back of an envelope. The questions/scribbles are just clues about what the requester really wants. It's better to ask more questions than to make assumptions.

[interested_observer]

Your question covers a lot of ground - its pretty wide. I agree with everything written here, and it comes down to the shot that you are going after and how you want to frame or compose it.

• If you want foreground - then you go wide.
• If you want to minimize distortion - then you go prime, no lower than about 24mm, and possibly stitch.
• If you want to shoot over the foreground and emphasize the distant - then you want a longer lens (28, 35, 50 or 85mm) and possibly stitch.

Wide angle lenses - Here are my landscape lenses

• 10-17 Fisheye - Great lens, runs from about 180 degrees to 100 degrees wide. Pulls in foreground, background and lots of sky.
• 12-24 - Another great lens, runs from 100 degrees wide to 60 degrees wide. Resolution peaks at around 18mm.
• 16-45 - Very good lens, runs 80 degrees to about 35 degrees wide.
• FA 31 Ltd - Wonderful lens - extremely sharp
• CZ 28/2.8 - Wonderful lens - extremely sharp - 1/3 the price of the 31, but all manual
• A 50/1.7 - Great lens, VERY Cheap (the M 50/2 is even cheaper).
• CZ 85/2.8 - Great lens, extremely sharp

The one thing that you need to understand about wide angle lenses (other than what has been written here by others), is that your sensor size is fixed at about 4288 x 2428 pixels. So those ~4000 pixels are going to have to represent everything from 180 degrees wide down to - let's say 35 degrees wide. That is a very large range. At 180 degrees one pixel will represent a lot of area, while at 35 degrees - a tremendously smaller area - and hence produce a much "sharper" more detailed and defined image, depending on the lens that is mounted. That's why stitching increases the width of the image, while preserving the detail or sharpness and definition.

Another aspect that you touched on is price. Wide angle lenses are not inexpensive. This is due to several factors. A lot of optical engineering is required to pull in the additional width of the scene, and a lot of complex optical glass is necessary to accomplish this. So, the wider the lens, the more the price increases. Another factor is the sensor size (as it relates to the APS-c sensors). Film camera lenses did not need to be so wide because the film "sensor" was much larger. The older glass really stopped at about 18mm - which was very wide angle. With the smaller sensor, these older lenses are not as wide (their field of view on the smaller digital sensor), therefore there is not a lot of older wide glass available, since it was just not made.

The older 50 mm lenses are very plentiful (essentially the film kit lens) which makes them very cheap. They are also pretty fast - not really necessary for landscapes, but at times a plus. However, their quality is extremely high, and they are optically superior. You can pick up an older 50mm f2 lens, all manual, shoot in portrait orientation and stitch, very easily, which would produce as wide an image as you desire, extremely sharp, high definition, wonderful colors for about $20.

[normhead]

Our current arsenal consists of the 10-17 fisheye, our favourite is the 21 Ltd. and we carry the 18-135, which is strong up until about 70mm. After 70 it is centre sharp only, but that actually works pretty good, we get some very nice bokeh at the edges on telephoto shots. Someday when we are rich and famous the 10-17 will get replaced by the 15 and we'll own the 35 macro, because when the wife is hogging the Tammy 90 macro (also a great lens) I have nothing to do. The plan over time is to become zoomless in the low end. The 21 ltd convinced us that's the way to go. We love the images from the 10-17- but compare them to the 21ltd and there's just something missing.