Lens purchasing dilemma - wide prime or 18mm kit lens [NX300]

I primarily use the 45mm 1.8 lens with my NX300 but for landscapes it seems not wide enough.

Was thinking should I just keep and use the kit lens at its widest instead of having to purchase another wide prime?

Thoughts? - I am not a pro but aspiring newbie and where I live there is heaaps of scenery just begging to be shot.

Here is a landscape picture I took with the 45mm prime lens - what do you think?

Please feel free to comment and critique, I'm all ears to feedback and improvement.

Great to have you participating in the forum. Your work is an inspiration to us all that we need to be reminded that camera is a tool that a photographer uses to help expand all of our horizons.

that said, there are many opinions re lenses. You can use the 18 55 and indeed capture a much wider field of view. In an absolute sense the edge to edge sharpness will not be on par with either the 20mm or 16 mm prime. However     You can overcome some in landscapes with tighter aperature and using a tripod etc.

also consider taking multiple images and sticking them together.

Ultimatly don t ever let a thought that you don't have the "right" lens at hand prevent you from doing all you can to use the tools you have to create images. it is clear that you are on the right track. Being there makes all the difference!

Some great shots You may want to look into the Rokinon 12 or fisheye,those landscapes down there are calling you.I hear them all the way here in new york.

I like your photo a lot. You have some scenery there that deserves photos that are sharp across the whole frame.

Great combo - NX300+45mm; sharp corner to corner; the 18-55mm isn't at 18mm. I use a Rokinon 12mm & NX16mm for wide landscapes. The 12mm is very good for those border to border sharp landscapes.

But I also use my 30mm & 45mm for those wide scenes; I just fire off plenty of shots and then stitch together in Microsoft ICE. Here's an example with the 45mm:

3 shots with 45mm stitched of an 80' tree from close quarters

MS ICE is a free program - easy to learn and very effective in its latest version.

Thank you for all of your kind words. This is my very first "manual" camera. And until a month ago my best camera was Samsung galaxy s5 camera
Really loving the manual mode.

"Where I was standing?" - not sure what you meant there, I drove up a mountain to get a good view of the lake. And photo was shot handheld.
I used to shoot both jpeg and raw but for some reason all my jpegs turn out bland so I switched to shooting only RAW, thanks to Samsung giving a free copy of light room.

This is literally my second time out to shoot landscape so pretty happy it turned out not too bad. Mind you my framing/composition wasn't very good so I cropped it a bit to give it a landscape wide look

Some great shots You may want to look into the Rokinon 12 or fisheye,those landscapes down there are calling you.I hear them all the way here in new york.

I'm actually going hiking this weekend so should be able to get more shots. This time I'll try both my 45mm lens and the kit lens at a wider length.

Fish eye eh? Unfortunately NZ doesn't have lots of shops selling Samsung gear, actually there are NO shops selling NX1 can you believe it you can't even order one from Samsung NZ website!

Anyways point is the lens options are very very limited where I am. I got lucky to buy this 45mm 2D/3D!

I have a tripod but it's very wobbly and very hard to find a straight even ground so I gave up!

All of these photos are shot handheld and the bird photos are fully manual including manual focus - https://500px.com/febypeter

Thanks for sharing. Keep having fun and enjoy the whole experimenting process with your already highly capable equipment.

GuinnessPint wrote:

I really like the 16mm prime.

Between the size and quality I highly recommend the 16mm, FWIW.

The 16mm is versatile - I've used it extensively for landscapes, architecture, dark interiors. Here's my previously posted DPR gallery of 16mm examples .

I particularly enjoy the small form factor on the NX300.

If you are shooting in decent light or from a tripod just stop your 18-55 to between f/5.6 and f/8. It's plenty sharp.

Your gallery made me want to buy this 45mm right now. You have very nice pics there.

I primarily use the 45mm 1.8 lens with my NX300 but for landscapes it seems not wide enough.

Was thinking should I just keep and use the kit lens at its widest instead of having to purchase another wide prime?

Thoughts? - I am not a pro but aspiring newbie and where I live there is heaaps of scenery just begging to be shot.

Here is a landscape picture I took with the 45mm prime lens - what do you think?

Please feel free to comment and critique, I'm all ears to feedback and improvement.

This what I do: Turn the camera in portrait mode, shoot a series of shots in burst mode in manual focus/exposure panning from left to right and then use Microsoft's ICE to stitch it together. Have not been disappointed yet.

I just bought the 12-24mm on sale. I might get my hands around it next week. Every review sayts it's a sharp ultra-wide lens. You should take a look at it.

Cheapest nx 12-24mm in NZ is $720.00! I'll try other options but to be honest do you guys think I should start spending big money on expensive lenses? Because at the moment NX300 with 18-55mm OIS kit lens + 45mm 1.8 2D/3D lens together owes me about $800USD.

Anything more I'll be thinking geez for $1.5k I could've got a higher end camera altogether. So in a way NX300 is a great value for money option which is one of it's greatest advantages.

**Thoughts on the above ?**

Also how good are the below "temporary" options below for landscapes? ---

1. Use the kit lens as advised here - "If you are shooting in decent light or from a tripod just stop your 18-55 to between f/5.6 and f/8. It's plenty sharp."

2. Stitching (although I've never done this, I'll read some tutorials, hopefully it's not too techy)

3. How about take panoramic shots using the 45mm? Not super long panoramas, I'm talking about 'just' enough to cover the area that I'll be missing out not having a wide lens.

Thanks heaps for all the input!

P.S Anyone know when I'll stop getting these warning messages everytime I post - "Your post will not be visible to other users until it has been approved by a moderator."

Caio Everton wrote:

I just bought the 12-24mm on sale. I might get my hands around it next week. Every review sayts it's a sharp ultra-wide lens. You should take a look at it.

I like what I've seen with the 12-24 Samsung lens but in my book wider is better, that is why I have been doing so many panorama's lately.  The 8-16mm from sigma might work by focusing manually but I cannot get over the no filter thing 

The distortion is remarkable on an 8-16mm lens: perfect for real estate.  It would fit perfectly with Samsung's line up too:  8-16, 16-50, and then 50-150.  So Samsung if you're listening, can the 11-24 2.8 and go for an 8-16mm with weather sealing please

First thing first, since you have already over 5 posts, as soon as local moderator (Taffy) approves your account your replies will be shown right away.

Regarding stitching - it works wonderfully if you know how. There are many tutorials on how to shoot panoramas (fix exposure and WB, don't wave your camera, rotate it as if on a tripod, etc). You will need a decent software for stitching, Microsoft ICE is free, simple and very good, if you need to do more complex stuff, Hugin is free, open source, works in auto mode but allows you to adjust everything down to smallest technical parameters if you need that (it's a GUI on top of mass of simpler command line utilities).

But seriously, start with turning your camera to portrait and stitch. Then do the same with 18mm end of your zoom stopped to f/7.1. You can get panoramas with arbitrary field of view, even wider than 12mm. If in time you find that most of your photos are around 12mm and you do not have time to stitch buy 12-24mm or Samyang 12mm.

Don't buy "just because" - experiment first to see what you need and what you only think you need.

P.S. I've been shooting panoramas with 30mm and I can get excellent 60MP panorama that would require very very expensive equipment to get in one shot.

Cheapest nx 12-24mm in NZ is $720.00! I'll try other options but to be honest do you guys think I should start spending big money on expensive lenses? Because at the moment NX300 with 18-55mm OIS kit lens + 45mm 1.8 2D/3D lens together owes me about $800USD.

Anything more I'll be thinking geez for $1.5k I could've got a higher end camera altogether. So in a way NX300 is a great value for money option which is one of it's greatest advantages.

**Thoughts on the above ?**

Also how good are the below "temporary" options below for landscapes? ---

1. Use the kit lens as advised here - "If you are shooting in decent light or from a tripod just stop your 18-55 to between f/5.6 and f/8. It's plenty sharp."

2. Stitching (although I've never done this, I'll read some tutorials, hopefully it's not too techy)

3. How about take panoramic shots using the 45mm? Not super long panoramas, I'm talking about 'just' enough to cover the area that I'll be missing out not having a wide lens.

Thanks heaps for all the input!

P.S Anyone know when I'll stop getting these warning messages everytime I post - "Your post will not be visible to other users until it has been approved by a moderator."

In my opinion it never a waste to spend money on good lenses if you have a mid range camera. You can always purchase an nx1 (or whatever the latest and greatest is) in the future and be able to use your lenses!