20mm Vs 24mm for landscape

There is no such thing as a "best lens for landscapes" it all depends on how much of the scene you want to include in the picture, sometimes a 10mm is best and other times it could be a 200mm.

If you had used a 24mm you would have got a slightly enlarged view of distant details but a more cropped foreground, you had a zoom lens so should just have used it at the 22mm setting if that is the effect you wanted.

It all comes down to giving more thought to the picture before you press the shutter button, something we can all suffer with at times especially when presented with an amazing scene as shown in your picture.

Barry Reynolds wrote:

Taken at 11mm (19.2mm)

Which do you prefer?

I shot a lot with the Canon 11-22mm at 11mm which is about 19.2mm equivalent. Most photos were in the Alps and they looked great but looking back now, I'm wondering if a 24mm would have been better.

20mm takes a lot in but it also pushes back the background making the details harder to see.

It's a zoom lens with an 18-35mm full frame equivalent field of view, so you could have taken the picture at 15mm (24mm FFE) on your walk up to that spot. The idea of an ultrawide zoom lens like that is that you get to a position where the perspective looks pleasing (i nearly said right, but it's sometimes better if it looks very wrong, or at least, different) and then use the zoom to frame it. The point of an ultrawide is more to turn molehills into mountains or vice versa, but just to cram everything in. Sometimes it's what you leave out of an image that makes it interesting.

I saw the 24mm IS USM on Flickr and the landscape shots have so much detail through the whole frame on full frame.

That's more to do with the format. I love my 11-22mm lens, but the RF 16mm (10mm APS-C equivalent, a lens which has been much maligned on the EOS R forum) does actually give better image quality. But it is much more difficult to use effectively as it doesn't zoom at all.

Maybe they lose the grandness of a 20mm as there is less distortion but I'm thinking a 24mm may be a more matured 20mm.

Barry Reynolds wrote:

I don't own it anymore but it's more a thought as you need to make a conscious decision to shoot at 24mm. It's actually much easier to frame in the Alps with 11mm (17.6mm) as everything fills it but it also pushes back the background too far I think. I find I'd need to be much more discipled with a 24mm to find the right position to take the shot

Look at Colin Prior's work, it's full of conscious decisions. You can definitely be disciplined and make the conscious decision to shoot at 15mm with that lens, but it gives you a whole lot of other options too.

You can try using your zoom at the 24mm equivalent FL and evaluate the outcome.

I actually prefer 20mm over 24mm, so I have a 20mm prime, no 24mm but 28mm, 35mm etc.

The challenge is to include an interesting foreground, middleground and background no matter the focal length.