What's the most common and popular focal length shooting landscapes?

Just curious for those of you who shoot landscapes. Also, are landscapes mostly shot with primes or short FL f2.8 zooms?

How long is a piece of thread?

Shorter lenses are great in tighter spaces.

In a large wide open space a longer lens can be useful.

Then you have the photographers vision.

Then you have the format to think about.

18mm at 18-55 aps-c kit zoom lens.

Most people just shoot with what they got and what is most appropriate for the shot - should it be a telephoto lens or a fish-eye.

Cameranoobie said:

Just curious for those of you who shoot landscapes.

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Anything, and I really mean anything, between 16mm and 400mm. And that's because I don't have wider or longer lenses. If I did, I'd be using them for landscapes, too. But you gotta stop somewhere Most of my landscapes are between 24mm and 200mm, though.

There really is no such thing as a landscape focal length; the subject landscape is too varied.

Cameranoobie said:

Also, are landscapes mostly shot with primes or short FL f2.8 zooms?

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No, you can use any good quality lens.

Regards, Mike

--
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I hardly ever speak for anybody but myself. In the cases where I do mean to speak generally the statements are likely to be marked as such.

Yes.

Depends entirely on the landscape, and also the photo you want to take of it.

Do you want some examples of landscapes at different focal lengths?

Here is a landscape photo that G Dan Mitchell shot of the Big Sur coast:


He used a super telephoto lens at 360mm to compress the scene from a long distance

Many people think of landscape photography as a genre where you get in close and use wide angle focal length for a sense of immersion, but there are many other options.

And here is one I took using a 21mm-equivalent lens:

Cameranoobie said:

Just curious for those of you who shoot landscapes.

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Based on this graph, I extracted a while ago, one could think 35-70mm...



But these higher numbers are only because the little 35-70 is always mounted, when testing out new sceneries...

Cameranoobie said:

Also, are landscapes mostly shot with primes or short FL f2.8 zooms?

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This poor shooter only owns "short" f/2.8 zooms... :-(

Should I one day want to add primes, I would choose 20, 24, 35, 50 (58?) and 105mm based on the above graph...

My back however says "bite me!" :-D

Cameranoobie said:

Also, are landscapes mostly shot with primes

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Probably, as most photos of any genre are taken with smart phones.

Cameranoobie said:

or short FL f2.8 zooms?

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No. Other than phone cameras there are vast numbers of f/3.5-5.6 kit lenses on interchangeable lens cameras, and fixed lens cameras come with different maximum apertures and different zoom ranges. I think short f/2.8 zoom are among the least common.

Cameranoobie said:

Just curious for those of you who shoot landscapes. Also, are landscapes mostly shot with primes or short FL f2.8 zooms?

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You don't need bright fast lenses to shoot quality landscapes. Most shooters use tripods and stop down to whatever the lens sweet spot, usually between 5.6 and 11. Many use primes for ultimate sharpness, but not a requirement.

Of course, many landscapes in the bright mid day sun are handheld because the shutter speeds get into the range where a Tripod isn't much help.

There are no hard and fast rules.

Hi

I use my 1650mm kit lens most of the time.

I adjust the zoom to fit the scene that I am taking a photo of.

Brad

Cameranoobie said:

Just curious for those of you who shoot landscapes. Also, are landscapes mostly shot with primes or short FL f2.8 zooms?

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It seems like the more traditional nature landscapes tend to average out at about 35mm in full frame terms. The most commonly used short zoom lenses will tend to overlap that focal length, including ultra-wide lenses. There seems to be something "natural" about that angle of view in nature landscape. Everybody that does a lot of landscape seems to have a large proportion of photos at that focal length.

The f/2.8 zooms are often used because they are more premium grade and multi-purpose, but being fast isn't essential for daylight use.

A landscape photographer is far more likely to use an ultra-wide zoom over a prime lens. A prime is too limited when you're trekking thousands of miles in unknown terrain and poor weather.

In 35mm speak then yes, 35mm is a commonly used fl. Much wider than 24mm is difficult to use well.

Most landscape can be taken stopped down to f8 or so, so the perennial zoom vs prime question is of less importance, at f8 most lenses are OK.

Cameranoobie said:

Just curious for those of you who shoot landscapes.

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I shoot every picture of every type with a normal focal length lens. Tamron defines this as anything from a 40 to 60mm equivalent, and I've had normal prime lenses anywhere from a 41 to 58mm equivalent.

Cameranoobie said:

Also, are landscapes mostly shot with primes or short FL f2.8 zooms?

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Gerry answered this already in terms of current usage (cell phones and kit zooms), but go back a few decades, and I'm pretty sure most hobbyists got by with a fixed-lens camera with a normal focal length prime. That was just how most "popularly-priced" cameras came, whether box camera, folding camera, twin-lens reflex, or rangefinder. A normal focal length lens can be surprisingly versatile, and speed isn't essential for many outdoor shots. One book I own on outdoor photography, printed in 1940, suggested that an f/4.5 or f/6.3 lens would be the best choice for most hobbyists; the kit zoom for my DSLR happens to have a maximum aperture of f/4.5 at my preferred 35mm (52.5mm equivalent) focal length, and I find that speed more than adequate.

Cameranoobie said:

Just curious for those of you who shoot landscapes. Also, are landscapes mostly shot with primes or short FL f2.8 zooms?

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So I'll cut through all the chase here and say that "common" would mean "the majority".

Given that smartphones are by far the majority of shots taken, that would almost certainly be about 28mm FF equivalent.

Cameranoobie said:

Just curious for those of you who shoot landscapes. Also, are landscapes mostly shot with primes or short FL f2.8 zooms?

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Maybe someone with access to Flickr's database could figure it out.

Despite the impression that ultra-wide-angle is important for landsape photography, I suspect that most shots are taken with the focal lengths you'd get with a regular "kit" zoom lens. Perhaps 35mm (in full-frame-equivlent) would be the most common.

Thanks for the input everyone.

I am picking up a used Sigma 18-35 f1.8 tomorrow and it will be my general zoom, indoor photography and wide angle portraiture lens. I will also give it a go for landscapes, I think it would do really well.

I am big into wide angle landscapes, I have a 7-14mm lens for my GH7 and GH4 that I can use if needed.

Other than that, I will admit, I am not a huge landscape fan but I do love taking pictures of sunsets and sunrises.

Cameranoobie said:

Just curious for those of you who shoot landscapes. Also, are landscapes mostly shot with primes or short FL f2.8 zooms?

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Landscape is a loaded term and there are a lot of types of landscapes, but I think the common default interpretation is for wide angle vistas.

I think the traditional vision is a vista of a distant mountain range, valley or ocean with nothing nearby to pollute the view. In that case, you would expect to use the widest lens possible to get as much of the beauty in the shot. You also would expect to shoot in f8-f11 for the most detail, so you don't need a f2.8 lens. f2.8 lenses tend to be expensive and thus high quality across their aperture range, so they can be a good choice. But most lenses are great at f8-f11 on a tripod where traditional landscape work happens, so don't think you need to get the most expensive choices for landscape.

The other scenarios for other focal lengths have to do with composition and framing, particularly when there might be foreground unpleasantness that a longer focal length might help exclude. Someone else on here mentioned compressing perspective with a longer lens and that is an option as well. Imagine you pulled over on the side of the highway to take a shot of a sunset view while travelling. The view might normally be vast enough for a wide angle lens, but the highway is too busy to cross by foot and there are no turnoffs for miles. You are stuck on one side with power lines and power poles on the other side where the view is. Using a longer focal length might allow you to compose a nice shot with those distracting elements excluded. Sure you can crop in post, but not everyone wants to do that.

When bag space/weight and swap time are not of critical concern, primes would be preferred. That said, today's zooms are very capable and, with few exceptions, you would probably be fine using a zoom most of the time for landscapes.