Full Frame Landscape Lens choice's.

I am looking for advice/help on choosing a landscape lens to pair with my 5dii, and soon I hope my 5diii. I have used the Sigma 12-24 f4 ART and loved it. However, I do not forsee being able to spend over 1000 bucks on a lens. Any advice, help options that you have had would be great.

Thanks

Cole

Most folks think Landscape = "view of a very wide area" so they mount a very wide angle lens.
The problem with a very wide angle lens is that what it does is

• capture very wide area (distance) far off from the camera position, with VERY TINY detail
  
• capture a very wide angle but somewhat narrow distance area close to camera position
  

cole4570 wrote in post #18818602
I am looking for advice/help on choosing a landscape lens to pair with my 5dii, and soon I hope my 5diii. I have used the Sigma 12-24 f4 ART and loved it. However, I do not forsee being able to spend over 1000 bucks on a lens. Any advice, help options that you have had would be great.

Thanks

Cole

The sigma is the only one that goes that wide. If you don’t need something that wide the canon 17-40 is a good lens at a good price.

If you don’t need a zoom there are a few 14mm manual primes that are good lenses at well under $1000

Also, any lens can be a “landscape” lens. I personally don’t shoot ultra wide that offten for landscapes. The widest I normally shoot would be 24mm on a full frame camera (I shoot apd-c so it’s 16mm for me).

Wilt wrote in post #18818624
Most folks think Landscape = "view of a very wide area" so they mount a very wide angle lens.
The problem with a very wide angle lens is that what it does is

• capture very wide area (distance) far off from the camera position, with VERY TINY detail
  
• capture a very wide angle but somewhat narrow distance area close to camera position
  

So the detail near the horizon becomes too small to see in a shot with an ultrawide angle lens!

The OP is from Montana, better known as “Big Sky Country”!!!

Wilt wrote in post #18818624
Most folks think Landscape = "view of a very wide area" so they mount a very wide angle lens.
The problem with a very wide angle lens is that what it does is

• capture very wide area (distance) far off from the camera position, with VERY TINY detail
  
• capture a very wide angle but somewhat narrow distance area close to camera position
  

If you use a wide angle lens just to take as much into the picture as possible, you frequently end up with pretty boring pictures. However, landscapes also have depth and wide angle lenses are an excellent tool to capture depth. In fact, they exaggerate the perception of depth by distorting the ratio between the size of close to far objects compared to the human eye. If you compose so that there are prominent objects in various distances, the resulting image will feel almost three dimensional (but please note that this can easily be overused as you can see in my images at the URL below ).

Wilt wrote in post #18818624
Most folks think Landscape = "view of a very wide area" so they mount a very wide angle lens.
The problem with a very wide angle lens is that what it does is

• capture very wide area (distance) far off from the camera position, with VERY TINY detail
  
• capture a very wide angle but somewhat narrow distance area close to camera position
  

So the detail near the horizon becomes too small to see in a shot with an ultrawide angle lens!

Here is an earlier post of mine
https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=18782250

As a counterpoint, I made a post titled, "Why I love my Ultra Wide Angle lens". Although I capture landscapes across all of my 14-600mm reach, my 14-24 is hands down my favorite landscape lens. I will say though that I see a lot of bad shots taken at very wide focal lengths, particularly for the reasons you mention. You just have to pick your subjects and compose carefully.

So, for the OP, I would recommend trying to find a 17-40/16-35 and pair that with your 24-105. Then as budget allows consider adding a 24-70 f/4 or /f2.8 if you do a lot of nightscapes, and then a 70-200 f/4. When I used to shoot Canon I used a 17-40 and 24-105 on my weight-conscious backpacking trips and found them to be a good pair.

I too would recommend the 17-40. It's a hard lens to beat for the money. It's super light, nice focal range and can be had for around $400 if you're okay with purchasing second-hand. I had it for a brief stint as I ended up purchasing it and a 16-35 f/4 IS at the same time. The 16-35 won out for me. Albeit, almost double the price, they can be had in the $750 range, second-hand.

Good luck in your search.

Used 16-35 f4 IS to go with your 24-105 and 70-200 is what I'd go for.

The usefulness of posting your gear - we can see you have 24-200mm covered and like do just want a UWA lens.

Sigma 14-24mm is on sale today only for $929. See https://www.bhphotovid​eo.com …14_24mm_f_2_8_d​g_hsm.html

cole4570 wrote in post #18818602
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I have used the Sigma 12-24 f4 ART and loved it. However, I do not foresee being able to spend over 1000 bucks on a lens.
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Keep your eyes on the classifieds. . At FredMiranda.com there have been two listed for under $1,000 within the past 6 months. . One was $949 and the other was $899.

Just curious - would you consider the older Sigma 12-24mm? . . The non-"Art" one? . . If not, I'd be interested in knowing what it is about the newer "Art" model that you prefer.


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cole4570 wrote in post #18818602
I am looking for advice/help on choosing a landscape lens to pair with my 5dii, and soon I hope my 5diii. I have used the Sigma 12-24 f4 ART and loved it. However, I do not forsee being able to spend over 1000 bucks on a lens. Any advice, help options that you have had would be great.

Thanks

Cole

Something to consider. I don't know what sort of developing software you use, but these days stitching multiple images is nearly foolproof (I'm the fool who knows from experience). I've take quite a few landscapes by assembling multiple exposures using Lightroom's PhotoMerge Panorama With a little practice I've learned to give a generous overlap to assist the software, and I usually do hand held. I'll use around a 50mm setting with my 17-55 most often, but I've even done it with my 70-200 lens too. I've used as many as 18 captures to build a single landscape.

This landscape was shot with the 70-200 f4 L IS zoomed to 176mm on my 60D (equivalent view to 277mm on full frame):

Photo from Preeb's gallery.