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Any recommended prime lens for scenics?

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BobT

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Is there any prime lens that stands out as a viable candidate for shooting landscapes and scenics?

If you had to select such a lens (only one), what prime lens would you recommend for the job(on a 1.6X crop body). And if you're up to it, justify your selection.

I will be most anxious to see your choice. Thanks very much.
 
I would probably choose the TSE 17mm . It would be a better choice on a full frame, but it opens up more chance to be creative.
 
I have shot landscapes and scenics with lenses going from to 16mm to 300mm. So, it depends. I would choose based on the place and on creativity.
 
Southwestern U.S. and the red-rock territory (and Grand Canyon). Does it help to know that; as to which single prime might work best?
 
I would encourage you to look at photos from the area, there are very good photographers that have worked the area for a long time (Alan Briot is one I like, and he comes to mind). On a Canon crop DSLR, if you want really wide angle (say 16mm equivalent), I can not think of a prime lens that would give you higher quality than the EF-S 10-22 zoom.

If you want to start at 24mm equivalent, or thereabouts, then you may want to look at the rectilinear 14mm lens, or the already mentioned 17mm TS lens.

If you want to start at 28mm equivalent, there is the excellent 18mm Zeiss.

Overall, I think that for wide angle on a crop camera there are very good Canon choices from zooms (10-22, 16-35L).

One other option is to buy a wide angle L prime and stitch the photos.
 
I have considered stitching as a solution if I couldn't afford a UWA lens. Tamron use to have a 17mm prime lens that was thought to be pretty good. Not sure if it was AF or MF. But that said, for this kind of shooting wouldn't MF lenses be almost as easy to use as AF lenses?

I was looking at a Rokinon 14mm lens. (I have the Rokinon 8mm fisheye.) It's MF lens. But will my T2i give me any sort of feed back for proper focusing? Like that beep or white dot in the viewfinder? But, with stitching as a possibility, I maybe wouldn't need to go that wide. Honestly, a 14mm lens would not be used very much after such a trip, so a slightly longer lens might be more practical for later on. So maybe a 24mm or 28mm prime instead?

Could well end up that I'll consider a WA zoom lens, but would like to at least consider primes right now, just to see what might be recommended. So let's continue talking prime lens.
 
BobT said:
BobT wrote:

If you had to select such a lens (only one), what prime lens would you recommend for the job(on a 1.6X crop body). And if you're up to it, justify your selection.
Click to expand...
In which case "WA" primes are out of the picture. Canon hasn't even bothered to recreate its fixed focal lineup in EF-S land. If you can make do with telephoto (compressed landscapes) anything from the 50/1.8 on up is perfectly fine stopped down a tad.

Something like the 24LII on the 7D is akin to smacking your head against nails because you misplaced your hammer, at least as long as the Olympus EP-2 + Panasonic 20/1.7 can be had for less than 1/2 the price of the L lens alone.

If you insist on primes for a range of work (UWA-tele), even the cheapest FF body will make a bigger difference than the most expensive L lens.
 
I just got the Bower 14mm from BHPhoto. The had it on sale for $299. I must have a good copy, because some of the snaps I have taken with it are sharp across the entire frame. I have only used it on my 5D, will be much easier when my 1d Mk3 gets back from Canon and I am able to use LV for focusing.
 
BobT said:
BobT wrote:

...I was looking at a Rokinon 14mm lens. ...
Click to expand...
There's less than a couple hours left on the Rokinon 14mm lens deal I posted just a few minutes ago, $300 on Amazon's "lightning deal". From what I understand for landscape this lens is excellent, though there's some distortion that makes it less than ideal for architecture.

Rokinon 14mm f2.8 for Canon on sale Amazon Lightning Deal $300

Caught this lightning deal earlier, running about $80 off regular price (B&H has for $380) with free shipping. Figured somebody here might be interested. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VSGQPG/ref=gb1h_tit_ABPCNRHYGWMRH?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER Amazon lightning deals end quickly, so this will...
forums.dpreview.com forums.dpreview.com

There's a Samyang 10mm rumored to be coming out any time, though I don't know what the price will be. That'll give you a nice 16mm on a 1.6x crop.
 
Jeadm said:
Jeadm wrote:
Jeadm said:
BobT wrote:

...I was looking at a Rokinon 14mm lens. ...
Click to expand...
There's less than a couple hours left on the Rokinon 14mm lens deal I posted just a few minutes ago, $300 on Amazon's "lightning deal". From what I understand for landscape this lens is excellent, though there's some distortion that makes it less than ideal for architecture.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3348408

There's a Samyang 10mm rumored to be coming out any time, though I don't know what the price will be. That'll give you a nice 16mm on a 1.6x crop.
Click to expand...
There is a plugin for Adobe you can download for the Samyang, works pretty well with distortion issues on this lens.
 
BobT said:
BobT wrote:

Is there any prime lens that stands out as a viable candidate for shooting landscapes and scenics?

If you had to select such a lens (only one), what prime lens would you recommend for the job(on a 1.6X crop body). And if you're up to it, justify your selection.

I will be most anxious to see your choice. Thanks very much.
Click to expand...
I'll go a bit further with this.

In general, unless you really think you need TS capabilities, primes don't offer many real advantages for landscape photography on cropped sensor bodies, yet zooms do offer some real and useful advantages.

If you think that a prime will provide "better image quality" than available zooms, you might want to think this through a bit more thoroughly:
  1. IQ differences tend to be more pronounced at the largest apertures and much smaller at the smaller apertures. Most landscape photography generally doesn't require the very largest apertures (with some exceptions, but only you know if these matter in your case), so any potential IQ advantage will be truly minimal or non-existent.
  2. If your notion of the one right focal length is a wide angle lens, your choices of wide angle primes are extremely limited on cropped sensor bodies. There really are barely any that provide the coverage you probably need that don't cost an arm and a leg and provide features you likely don't need.
  3. There are zooms that cover the entire range of focal lengths that you might want.
  4. Even if you are convinced that primes have better image quality, this may not play out as you expect for several reasons.
  5. Reason #1: Unless you work from the tripod, use a sophisticated post-processing workflow, and regularly print very large, the potential IQ differences between a very good prime stopped down and a good zoom stopped down will almost certainly never be visible in your photographs.
  6. Reason #2. If your composition works perfectly with the one focal length you have, you may get slightly optimized IQ from the prime. (But see #5 and #1 above.) However, if your composition does not work perfectly at the one FL you own - quite likely - you will have to crop. When you crop you reduce IQ/resolution. It doesn't take much cropping at all to obliterate or even reverse the small IQ difference that you might get from the prime.
Frankly, most photographers shooting landscape these days use zooms. Some, like me, may use primes and zooms, but even we tend to use zooms most often. It is hard for me to fathom why anyone would want to limit themselves to a single focal length prime these days when excellent zooms are available that provide great image quality and much greater functionality and versatility.

Dan
 
Last edited by a moderator:
gdanmitchell said:
gdanmitchell wrote:
gdanmitchell said:
BobT wrote:

Is there any prime lens that stands out as a viable candidate for shooting landscapes and scenics?

If you had to select such a lens (only one), what prime lens would you recommend for the job(on a 1.6X crop body). And if you're up to it, justify your selection.

I will be most anxious to see your choice. Thanks very much.
Click to expand...
I'll go a bit further with this.
Click to expand...

gdanmitchell said:
Frankly, most photographers shooting landscape these days use zooms. Some, like me, may use primes and zooms, but even we tend to use zooms most often. It is hard for me to fathom why anyone would want to limit themselves to a single focal length prime these days when excellent zooms are available that provide great image quality and much greater functionality and versatility.
Click to expand...

Dan


i agree with you, Dan, i think the beginners should definitely use the teles for a while until they get enough experience to decide on a prime for their particular need! today's teles have come a long way as far as IQ is concerned, the latest canon 24-70mm f2,8 mkII is good example! happy zooming.

cheerz.
 
BobT said:
BobT wrote:

Is there any prime lens that stands out as a viable candidate for shooting landscapes and scenics?

If you had to select such a lens (only one), what prime lens would you recommend for the job(on a 1.6X crop body). And if you're up to it, justify your selection.

I will be most anxious to see your choice. Thanks very much.
Click to expand...
I prefer primes, but I don't think it is a good idea to have only one prime lens for landscapes and nature. For Southwest I would want to cover wider angles, possibly 21 and 35 (for FF) and add one longer, like 100mm. I think wide angle or normal zoom is not a bad idea either, especially if you can get one that is sharp in corners.

With prime(s), especially if you are going to have just one, you are likely to crop and therefore lose the resolution advantage that primes might have over zooms.
 
If you could shoot with only 1 single prime lens, and NO other lenses at all, what focal length lens would you use for EVERYTHING, but with an edge towards landscape shooting? Stitching in post would be permitted. Not a real intelligent question, but give it a go.
 
I pretty much a newbie but was at Bryce, Zion, Grand Canyon and Sedona with a sx40 in October. I found the zoom quite handy but wasn't happy with the IQ so I returned the sx40 and got a rebel 4ti with a 18-135 stm lens. It is equivalent to a 28 to 200 FF zoom. So far I think 18-135 lens will work great for landscape -and I am happy with the IQ. I want a prime to go with it but for portrait work where i want a 1.4 or 1.2, 35 to 50. the only draw back to the zoom is it is bulky to carry on a hiking trail. A prime is usually lighter and compact.
 
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