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Best Landscape Lens?

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mvb04

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Ok... here's my problem. I'm looking for a good landscape lens. I've been using both the 14-54 and the 7-14. My beef with them is that objects in the distance tend to look unsharp. I'm thinking of buying one of the oly primes (35 or 50) to see if they work better in that regard. Has anyone had this issue and found a solution? What lenses have you all found to work well for landscapes?
 
psiegesmund said:
Ok... here's my problem. I'm looking for a good landscape lens.
I've been using both the 14-54 and the 7-14. My beef with them is
that objects in the distance tend to look unsharp. I'm thinking of
buying one of the oly primes (35 or 50) to see if they work better
in that regard. Has anyone had this issue and found a solution?
What lenses have you all found to work well for landscapes?
Click to expand...
Using wide angles for landscapes is best done with large format. Wide angles shine the best with close subjects. Either of the primes would work fine for general landscape work.. Joe Forks has some very impressive panoramas done with the 50mm.
--
Bob Ross
http://www.pbase.com/rossrtx
 
psiegesmund said:
My beef with them is
that objects in the distance tend to look unsharp.
Click to expand...
If using hyperfocal focus for landscapes you are more or less guaranteeing that the distance is unsharp. Way better to use infinity focus, or focus on furthest object and then use a small aperture to make foreground acceptable.

Read more on this here..... http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/DOFR.html

Regards.......... Guy
 
but they are not all as good for the same type landscapes (whatever that word really means- it is a popular, much used term though). When used with the correct type shots I see few problems with unsharp detail.

7-14:





14-54:





50-200:





They all serve their purpose depending what or how you want to capture the subject. Beyond the extra speed of the 50/2, I'm not sure how much better either the 50 or 35 primes will be than the 14-54 at those two settings based on what I've seen from the one I own. The 35mm prime is cheap enough, but the 50/2 is quite an extra investment.
--
'I am the world's second worst typist'
 
I'd say. I have the 11-22 (which I regard as the ideal landscape lens) and the 14-54. Both are entirely sharp enough for landscapes, and so would the 7-14 be too, I would have thought. If not I would suggest that you need more megapixels than you've got or else you need to play with Smart Sharpen. I don't think ther is any lesn you can pin on the front that will much improve on the 14-54. I have the 50mm, widely regarded as the sharpest Oly lens, and it IS, subjectively, sharper, but it isn't a huge difference on a landscape.
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/acam
http://www.pbase.com/acam/
 
The 50mm is softer than the 14-54 at infinity focus. It is a macro lens. Macro lens design tradeoffs characteristically lead to this weakness. Note, this is based on DxO graphs. My eyes can't tell the difference :-)

As to the question: it has no answer. They're all good for landscape. It just depends what you want to do. The combination of 14-54 and 50-200 covers most bases though.

---
E-System & other stuff...
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Photoblogography
 
the tests are.

My eyes see the 50mm as "sharper" - but in fact I reckon both lenses probabaly out-resolve the sensor, so I don't know what I am ACTUALLY seeing.

There are more differences between lenses than standard objective testing says there should be (as has been my experience with Hi-Fi for thirty years).

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/acam
http://www.pbase.com/acam/
 
Well, if the 50mm/f2 is better at semi close-up/macros/portraits than landscapes, and you're looking for a fixed lense, perhaps 150mm/f2 will be perfect for you?

I would try the 11-22mm anyway.
--
Kind regards
.lars
 
The 7-14 is a deceptive lens. It is easy to think that far detail is unsharp, but that is mainly because it is so small compared to longer lenses. It usually comes into its own contrasting near objects with far landscapes. You need to be careful with focus, as although it has huge depth of field, this also gives the autofocus a hard time, and its lock will be variable. I often use it on manual focus. After tests, I found mine focussed the distance sharpest at 7mm at the right end of the infinity marker, but at 14mm halfway along the left lobe.

Bruce
 
I also have those 3, but I use the 50-200 most often for landscape.... it is all down to personal taste, vision, and of course subject and location. And also I don't fiind that 4:3 suits wide angle landscape so much. Then again, if I want to go wide, I use my XPan....
---
E-System & other stuff...
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Photoblogography
 
Thanks for the feedback. You've given me alot to think about. Admittedly, my complaint amounts to pixel peeping, but lately I've been able to photograph some extraordinary places and I'm a probably a little obsessive about making the most of the photo opportunities.
 
More often than not I use the 50-200mm for landscapes!

When I do use the 14-54 at its wide settings I usually end up cropping some off the top and bottom, usually ending up with something more akin to the 3:2 format.

I envy you on owning the xpan, one of my future planned purchases, secondhand now of course!! Why don't they make a digtal xpan, cropping just is not the same!!

Stephen.
--
http://www.notofthisearth.co.uk
http://www.abannforlife.co.uk
 
Stop pixel peeping. Also unless you are using a rock solid tripod (at any shutter speed), MLU and shooting RAW with a GOOD converter etc, you aren't going to get everything the lens can deliver. -- Stacey
 
I know that... but in some cases, the pictures were taken in light conditions where the lens was stopped down a bit and the shutter speed was still extremely fast... like 1/2000 second or less @ ISO 100 and f 5.6, 8 or 10.

Moreover, the pictures look the same whether they're taken under the conditions above or using a tripod.

And this is a real issue to me, as I've made some very large enlargements out of these pics.
 
Oh yea - I don't know what MLU is, but I only shoot RAW and use ACR with PSCS2 andn Oly Studio. So, I think I have reason to feel that I can do a little better.
 
My 11-22 was never sharp at the horizon. I looked at the lens, and noticed it never focused at infinity when I used AF. I nearly sent it back. Then I went from tre focus points AF to one focus point AF, and the problem was solved. With three focus points the lens typically focuses at 1,5 meters. It's still important to combine AF with a small MF adjustment. Here the E-1 rules over my E-300 big-time, because of the brighter viewfinder. Hope this helps.
--
Free your mind, and your camera will follow...
 
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