Telephoto for landscapes - 40-150mm f2.8 or something else?

MShot wrote:

If you compose something close you don't need long. If you go someplace like the Palouse where you can forever, I find 150mm - even 300mm very useful. (300-600).

That may be, I've never shot there; but that is not hiking/backcountry skiing where weight is important. When I go out hiking which is probably 70 times a year I make a conscience decision which of my lenses I'll bring along. some hikes are just exercise or I've done them too many times for them to be interesting on a mid-day hike. In those cases I may not carry a camera at all. On many hikes, knowing what is available to photograph, I will sometimes carry just my 12-40 - the same on most backcountry skiing trips if I expect the scenery and lighting to warrant a camera. On others, particularly in the North Cascades, or in the Canadian Rockies or Purcells, or near Mt. Rainier I may choose to add my 35-100 F2.8. This is mostly for glacier detail or detail of spectacular rock formations. On overnights (and a few day hikes) in the mountains where scenes are good I may add the 8mm F1.8 FE - also for rain forests or ocean sea shore scenes. The 8mm F1.8 FE because of it's aperture is very good for astro/landscape. I think the 75-300 is a very good choice for hiking and photographing wildlife. But there are few hikes where I am likely to encounter significant wildlife and so that lens usually stays at home; but gets used when shooting birds in lowland birding areas - again not on most hikes.

I need 420mm to photograph the Olympic Mountains beyond Lake Washington from my house in Kirkland without cropping. I use it on the Puget Sound. Depends on the kind of landscape you are photographing, where it is, how you want to compose it.

While I agree with your last sentence, for me it is clear there are very few hikes and no ski tours where I would carry the somewhat larger 75-300. As to photographing the Olympics from the greater Puget Sound area, that again is not hiking - at least not of consequence.

More landscapes are photographed with a long telephoto than you think.

That is not my experience in the mountain ranges I visit - the Cascades, Olympics, Purcells, Canadian Rockies, Tetons, Wind Rivers, and Sierra Nevada. I am usually in the range of 12-40 mm with quite a few shots in the 15mm to 40mm range and a much smaller set of outliers to 65 to 80mm and with the 8mm, and with a yet much far fewer set of shots beyond 80mm and a few extending to 300mm on the occasions when I carry the 75-300.

I would note that although many shots are not at their best below 15mm, Most days I might shoot at 12mm once or twice, so I would encourage the OP to consider the 12-40 over the 14-140. 8mm or 12mm shots are definitely something I would shoot more commonly in desert scenes with wide open spaces and a huge sky or in seascapes - which I rarely shoot. I ordinarily use the 8mm or 12mm perhaps to 14mm or 15mm for astro/landscape. Except for these uses one does not ordinarily need a fast lens and that is with a tripod. So something like a 17mm F1.8 would, for me, just be an optional lens for tripod use in shooting the MW.