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Wide angled lens for mountains?

Started Oct 8, 2015 | Discussions thread
Frank Jones Regular Member • Posts: 190
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I've been to Nepal a number of times, the most recent being a trek to Gokyo Ri and Everest Base Camp in 2012.

At the time I had a G1 with the 14-45 kit lens, the 45-200 telephoto, and a 0.8x "poor man's" wide angle lens (Minolta ACW-100).

I ended up with 886 'keepers' and just ran ExposurePlot over them, obtaining the following results, shown as 35mm focal length:

Interestingly, the 40-50mm range (316 photos) was the most used, followed by the 28-30mm range (257 photos). I only found the need to attach the (admittedly cumbersome) wide angle lens 18 times, and many of those were indoor shots.
I don't recall feeling 'held back' by not having a true WA lens. As other people have commented, you can always stitch a panorama - I did about 15 of them. Bear in mind, too, that there are plenty of other things to photograph besides mountains - gompas, lodges, people, yaks or things around Kathmandu for example.
I also agree with other comments that a fisheye or UWA often makes the mountains 'recede' into the distance and they lose that sense of grandeur, especially in the Everest region where 6,000 - 7,000-metre plus peaks are the norm. This photo is a section of a panorama shot with images at the wide end of the kit lens (14mm focal length):

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