Originally posted by khardur For my portrait work which is starting to pick up, the 17-50 would be more versatile and yet give me a wide angle option for landscapes. The 15mm wouldn't be my main lens in the studio setting, yet I have nothing even close to that focal length and I'm dying for a good wide angle.
Wide angle lenses are not for landscapes. This is some sort of a popular myth: since the world is wide we need a wide angle to cover it. But a wide angle lens has the effect of
pushing away and diminishing anything that is not close to it, which means everything in the landscape. Mountains become hills and hills become molehills. This is not the way to build a dramatic or interesting shot.
What a wide angle is good for is enclosed spaces, not open spaces. Interiors, narrow streets, markets, walls. And any time you want to emphasise or even distort the dimensionality of something
close to the lens.
That's why you will see tons of landscape photos with a wide angle published in certain glossy magazines. They all have some bold object taking up all the interesting room in the foreground. To me this approach is a trick shot I am tired of, like anything shot with a fish-eye. (If you want this effect, the best lens would be the DA14, since it has closer focus.)
Last time I went shooting a landscape I took a 43mm and 105mm lens. I also find that 28mm is pretty useful. Of course it would not be impossible to use 15mm, but there are better choices IMO.
I think you need a fast prime more than anything, so you can see what you are missing with your "mediocre" zooms. But maybe if you sell them all off then getting a 17-50 f/2.8 would be a good choice for you. Certainly you will find 17mm to be a world of difference from 28mm.
If you want wide angle, the best and most versatile is the DA12-24mm. The only reason to get the DA15mm is size. It is as good as but no better than the zoom and you miss out on 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24mm.
EDIT: To be clear... I realise this same argument could be made for any zoom; it's better than a prime since it covers more focal lengths. But only on the wide end does each mm make a really different shot. The difference between, say, 50mm and 55mm is not as pronounced. Besides this, one can always step closer in portraiture and other applications, but one cannot always step back to get a wider image of, say, an entire room.