wide angle lens for landscape

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Justine,

To pick up on something you said earlier ...

How does this lens work in dimlight - I love to shoot my kids running around my house, esp when at night

Well; f/2.8 will be faster than many zooms, but for similar reasons others have stated for landscapes, I'm not at all sure you'll find it useful for shooting the kids as described.

To have them large enough in frame to be the obvious subject, you'll need to be quite close to them and I can see various pitfalls here;
they may crash into the lens
whichever bit of their body is closest to the lens will look really big (in comparison to the rest of their body)
at f/2.8 you may not have enough Depth of Field
you'll end up including a lot of the rest of the room, leading to clutter, lights and other distracting stuff, all competing for the viewers attention, in shot.

I have the D5000 too, my next lens is almost certain to be the Nikon 10-24mm, that's a bit outside your budget, but if I get it, it will be for architectural, rather than landscape use - I have a P&S that goes a little wider than the 18mm we're both used to and I like shooting "up close and wide".

Maybe Santa will bring me one if I'm good

Welcome to the CiC forums from ....

[rpcrowe]

Justine, now that we have all effectively discouraged the use of UWA lenses for landscapes, I'd like to direct your attention to a guy who makes efective use of UWA lenses, specifically, the Tokina 12-24mm f/4. In addition to giving you an idea of the creative uses of an UWA lens, Roman Johnson's images are just fun to look at...

http://www.pbase.com/romansphotos/root

Roman lists the gear with which he shot each photo. A great number of his beautiful images were shot with the 12-24mm Tokina.

When I was looking for an UWA lens, it was Roman's images that convinced me to get the Tokina. I have never been unhappy that I made that selection but, my landscapes certainly don't approach Roman Johnson's.

[justine]

i am much appreciated the knowledge and experienced you guys shared, it helps me a lot and other readers whom started into landscape photography. the detailed discussion here goes me into deeper understanding and the purpose of each lens we use,
im thanking each one of you whom helping not only me but by others who need help as well ive seen a lot of discussion here in the forum and in other categories and i'm enjoying reading it also, and again it adds my knowlegde too, onced again "CIC's" thank you very much! and happy shooting everyone!

lady Justine

[loosecanon]

I am surprised that so many suggest wide zooms for landscape photography. Photography is about light, and zoomz have many elements and air gaps within them which can lead, despite modern coatings, to a degree of flare. Simpler and cheaper prime lenses often cope better with more difficult lighting.

[justine]

Hi Justine,

To pick up on something you said earlier ...



Well; f/2.8 will be faster than many zooms, but for similar reasons others have stated for landscapes, I'm not at all sure you'll find it useful for shooting the kids as described.

To have them large enough in frame to be the obvious subject, you'll need to be quite close to them and I can see various pitfalls here;
they may crash into the lens
whichever bit of their body is closest to the lens will look really big (in comparison to the rest of their body)
at f/2.8 you may not have enough Depth of Field
you'll end up including a lot of the rest of the room, leading to clutter, lights and other distracting stuff, all competing for the viewers attention, in shot.

I have the D5000 too, my next lens is almost certain to be the Nikon 10-24mm, that's a bit outside your budget, but if I get it, it will be for architectural, rather than landscape use - I have a P&S that goes a little wider than the 18mm we're both used to and I like shooting "up close and wide".

Maybe Santa will bring me one if I'm good

Welcome to the CiC forums from ....

let me check my mail box if someone sending me a gift
i love my kidz doing awfull things infront of my lens, they are very funny, but hey! never poke with a sword
im still loving my P&S

[justine]

Justine, now that we have all effectively discouraged the use of UWA lenses for landscapes, I'd like to direct your attention to a guy who makes efective use of UWA lenses, specifically, the Tokina 12-24mm f/4. In addition to giving you an idea of the creative uses of an UWA lens, Roman Johnson's images are just fun to look at...

http://www.pbase.com/romansphotos/root

Roman lists the gear with which he shot each photo. A great number of his beautiful images were shot with the 12-24mm Tokina.

When I was looking for an UWA lens, it was Roman's images that convinced me to get the Tokina. I have never been unhappy that I made that selection but, my landscapes certainly don't approach Roman Johnson's.

this lens is floating on my top list, very interesting images there thank you

[justine]

Justine

By now, you are probably quite confused by all the high quality advice that had been offered to you by our colleagues.

Some key points are, I think:

• An ultra-wide angle lens, such as the Tokina 11-16, is not essential in order to make good landscape pictures.
• If you are able to afford one and wish to learn about getting the most from such a lens, then it does provide many more opportunities for creative and imaginative work.
• But, you must never think of such a lens as just a way to get more scenery into the image. If you do that, you will not make good pictures. Such a lens does require a different approach to your photography and, as with all equipment, the only way in which you can learn how to make it work for you is to practice, practice, practice.
• As others (Colin, Richard) have said above, many great landscape images can be made with a much longer lens. I very much enjoy using (and I think quite successfully) my Canon 70-200mm and Sigma 120-400 lenses for landscape photography.

Keep us informed of the decision you make.

sure.. thank you

[justine]

I'm not completely convinced that a wide-angle zoom is a must for landscapes. "Landscape" can mean many things, from sweeping vistas to a tight composition of a distant building. I always suggest for someone just starting out to sticking with there 18-55 for now. Maybe practice using it only at 18mm or 20(ish)mm as an exercise. If you do that for a while and you find yourself wanting to get even closer to your subjects and wanting to exaggerate depth (foreground-background) more than you can at 18mm, then consider going wider. But only then

thank you Paul, this lens still with me and still capable of shooting beautiful images despite thus broken rbber focus ring, im just worried that suddenly it will fails in the midst of shooting

[justine]

Hi Justine,

I wrote an article for premier filter manufacturer Singh-Ray on the subject of why "wide isn't always better" when it comes to landscape - you might find it interesting:

http://singhray.blogspot.co.nz/2009/...-for-your.html

lovely images and great blogs thanks for sharing it Sir..

[Manfred M]

I am surprised that so many suggest wide zooms for landscape photography. Photography is about light, and zoomz have many elements and air gaps within them which can lead, despite modern coatings, to a degree of flare. Simpler and cheaper prime lenses often cope better with more difficult lighting.

I would say that is more of a theoretical argument than a real one; for instance the fixed lens f/2.8 Nikkor has 14 elements in 12 groups, and the zoom f/2.8 14-24mm Nikkor has 14 elements in 11 groups, and the air / glass interface will have more of a reflection problem than glass / glass ones, so the zoom should perform a tiny bit better than the fixed lens. The zoom also uses more advanced anti-reflection approach, so it should be better. I would agree that once you get out of the ultra-wide angle lenses, the primes are less complex, but that is not necessarily going to result in a better image.

I had a look at both lenses, but ended up buying the zoom because it was only $150 more than the fixed lens at the time.

I do admit I have been an ultra-wide lens "junkie" for a long time. The Leitz f/2.8 19mm Elmarit-R was my favourite lens when I shot a lot of film; I bought the f/2.8 11-16mm Tokina when I went to a digital DSLR and in fact the reason I went with a D90 and the internal focus motor was because I was planning to buy that lens. When I went to a full-frame D800, I bought the Nikkor f/2.8 14-24mm lens. I actually tend to use them more for architectural shots than landscapes, but as long as you use them carefully and have a good foreground subject, they give some really stunning results.

[justine]

I have yet to buy a wide-angle lens, used to work with 35mm and now a 28mm, and if I want the wide/high view I stitch .... doesn't work for some subjects but I have yet to experience them and none of the subjects shown above really need a WA. Last one I did, a few months ago, was shot at around 88mm. I guess it is like a lot of accessories ... we spend for convienience

once my friend showed me his stiche images theyre looking good as if loking natural but required lot of time in computer, what do this stiches images in the photography is this similar to landscape? as it covers wide angle?

[justine]

Justine,

Often a photographer's mindset automatically turns to UWA focal lengths when it comes to landscape photography. Sometimes using UWA lenses is not a great idea, especially if your desire is to get the greatest coverage left to right. The UWA lens will often result in a large area of sky and a large area of uninteresting foreground with a small strip of interest somewhere in between.

Although we see a large expanse when looking at any vista, our eyes have selective vision and can concentrate on the interesting portion of what we see. The camera doesn't have this selective vision. When shooting landscapes, I like to concentrate on specific interesting images within the landscape and thus will often use a longer lens. If using a UWA lens, I like to concentrate on an interesting object (rock, plant, etc) in the foreground to achor the image and to provide an illusion of depth.

I used a 24-70mm f/2.8L lens on a 1.6x camera (38.4-112mm equivalent) for this shot of Yosemite.



If I had used an UWA lens, I would have captured a broad expanse with a tiny little waterfall.

I used a wide lens for this image but, my main subject was the lava rock formations in the foreground. The tree just balanced the shot and the lava rock formed leading lines bringing my attention to the tree.



If you need a wider left to right coverage, a several shot pano is easy to shoot (even hand-held) and is equally as easy to composite using an editing program like Photoshop Elements or Photoshop. If you have a tripod with you, shooting with a longer lens with the camera in the portrait position will provide wider top to bottom coverage. Left to right coverage is predicated on the number of images you composite into the pano...

BTW: There is one advantage to the Tokina 12-24mm lens over the 11-16mm. The 12-24mm "can" be used as a "normal range" zoom since its 24mm side has a 38.4mm equivalent. I brought my 12-24mm Tokina to China to use if I needed a wide shot. However, I also thought that I could use it for my "normal" zoom; if the 17-55mm f/2. IS lens died while I was in China...

OTOH, the 11-16mm is 1-mm wider which can be important. It also has a constant f/2.8 aperture which is one stop faster than the 12-24mm f/4. However, I most often shoot my UWA images at smaller apertures to gain the widest DOF. Another advantage of the 12-24 models over the 11-16mm lenses is the lower price...

wow! stunning photos thanks for sharing it rpcrowe, i love it!

[justine]

The issue with ultra-wide angle lenses is that you have to have something to fill the image space and that can be a bit tricky. Here are a couple of shots done with the Tokina f/2.8 11-16mm at 11mm. These are both shots from fairly remote parts of Iceland:

Viti crater:




Dettifoss - the largest waterfall in Europe (based on the colour of the water, we started referring to it as Dirtyfoss)

another stunning photos! i wished i have a skil like yours Fred, and wished been that place and taking lots of photos

[John Morton]

once my friend showed me his stitched images they're looking good as if looking natural but required lot of time in computer, what do this stitches images in the photography is this similar to landscape? as it covers wide angle?

I enjoy doing landscape photography the most, but, I don't have any wide angle lenses. My favorite lens is a 45mm Perspective Control (PC: shift/tilt) lens; and yes something a little wider would be nice! I've never owned a (prime) lens wider than 38mm, though; so I guess I've just been concentrating on framing my images, and trying to capture 'characteristic' landscapes for the areas I visit (as opposed to the classic 'jaw dropping' shots).

Lately, though, I've been using the 'shift' function of my favorite 45mm PC to capture short panoramas when I shoot landscapes. I set up for a photo, then shift the lens left and right; and afterward I stitch the left, center, and right frames together for a wider view. One advantage, I suppose, is that I get a wider angle shot without all the extra 'top and bottom' that I would otherwise have to find a way to fill with something (anything!) for the viewer to look at.

It isn't that much work to stitch together panoramas on the computer, provided you don't go overboard with how much you want to bring together, and, as long as you have lots of overlap between images. With my 45mm lens, the left and right shifts actually cover everything the the center image captures; so there is lots of overlap for the software I use (Photoshop CS4) to work with. It doesn't seem to have any problems whatsoever with these images. I am shooting with a Nikon D700 so, as TIFF's, the left-center-right images are about 70 megabytes each.

Over the last few years, I've been plodding along in documenting landscapes in the area where I grew up. I've lived in a lot of places in Canada that are (arguably) far more "photogenic" that around here but, at a certain point in my life I realized that I didn't have a lot of really high quality photographs of this area; so I decided to rectify that.

Here are a couple of images I've done this autumn, stitched together from three frames to give a short panorama from a 45mm lens.

If you don't have a good tripod and cable release for your camera, my advice would be that these items would be a better investment than a new lens.

I've already posted these two images elsewhere on this site so my apologies to the other CiC members for not having gotten around to doing any other stuff (or re-editing these two images) from my autumn landscape photo shoots.



<->



<->

These are High Dynamic Range (HDR) images.

Be sure to click on them, and then the little "bigger" box at the bottom, to see them full size!

[justine]

wow!! what a beautiful scenery John, why is it that it looks natural than using a wide lens i mean the perspective is just perfect having that trees stands straight the houses at the distant looks fairly good and the area of the water and sky isnot so wide did u manage to crop this photo from top to botom? i did shot my 18-55mm and end -up of a frustrating weird aspheric subject especially the nearest trees, is that all of the widest lens characteristic? as the guys said i must be aware of shooting this uwa or else i endup of afrustrating image so another task for me to practice, though their photos are amazingly good,, so panorama is done by stiching several photo framing, my goodness! this is another new world of photgraphy for me.. anyway i will try it butinfact i hate carrying thus tripod for me is not so easy maybe when i spare mytime alone without having my kids around thank you for sharing this one in addition..

[Manfred M]

Justine - John did these shots with a perspective adjustment lens, which allows the photographer to correct distortion. I haven't "invested" in this very expensive lens yet, so I end up using post-processing to achieve a similar effect.

As for carrying a tripod, this is something that I tend to so when I head out to do landscape photography. It lets me get the very best quality out of my camera and lenses. It is also a wonderful composition tool that allows me to frame a shot very accurately.

[John Morton]

Hi, Justine;

Well to answer your question (as best I can), the human eye (apparently) sees a field of view roughly equivalent to a 47mm lens on a 35mm or full frame camera (except of course we have two eyes so we are actually seeing wider than that - I guess!) so a 45mm lens gives a field of view that appears very natural to the eye.

Since I am using a shift/tilt lens, and the point where the lens shifts (moves from side to side, or, up and down) is at the nodal point of the lens (where the light rays cross each other, like two cones placed point-to-point), there is absolutely no distortion whatsoever when the three separate images are stitched together into one panorama.

The way a shift/tilt (Perspective Control) lens works, is, it is much larger than it needs to be to cover the camera sensor; so shifting and tilting the lens just uses parts of the image that are off to the side of the sensor otherwise. In that sense, a shift tilt lens is like a wide angle lens that is always being naturally cropped by the sensor.

With this lens, the shift function I use to make panoramas is most commonly used to take photos of buildings: by pointing the camera directly at the building, then shifting the lens instead of tilting the camera upward to get the whole building in the photo, all the parallel lines on the building stay straight (instead of looking like they come toward each other toward the top). Since that's what I did to get the trees into the vertical panorama, they all look straight and true.

[FrankMi]

Hi Justine, I wonder if you have had the 18-55mm lens looked at to get a repair cost? With a replacement 18-55mm Nikor lens at under $200US, replacing or repairing the kit lens might be a better bet for most landscape photography.

I have the Tokina 11-16mm but use it mostly for interior images and seldom for landscapes for the reasons mentioned by several others. It is not that there isn't a place for an UWA in landscape but rather that it wouldn't be the primary lens and you would likely get more mileage out of your 18-55mm. I also have the 55-300mm telephoto for my D3100 but the bulk of my landscapes are shot either with the 18-55mm or with the Canon SX40 P&S.

[Prowler]

Another thought is purchase a good used lens. I bought the Nikon 12-24mm lens used on the Nikonians site in that price range. Love that lens.
Eddie

[justine]

As for carrying a tripod, this is something that I tend to so when I head out to do landscape photography. It lets me get the very best quality out of my camera and lenses. It is also a wonderful composition tool that allows me to frame a shot very accurately.

absolutely true Fred, i did sometimes when im in the mode or when its planned but mostly my shot's were handheld which i am comfortable with

With this lens, the shift function I use to make panoramas is most commonly used to take photos of buildings: by pointing the camera directly at the building, then shifting the lens instead of tilting the camera upward to get the whole building in the photo, all the parallel lines on the building stay straight (instead of looking like they come toward each other toward the top). Since that's what I did to get the trees into the vertical panorama, they all look straight and true.

wow! this is something different, i think the special functionality cause the lens so expensive,, im wondering if i could get one, in my dream thanks for the brief info John

Hi Justine, I wonder if you have had the 18-55mm lens looked at to get a repair cost? With a replacement 18-55mm Nikor lens at under $200US, replacing or repairing the kit lens might be a better bet for most landscape photography.

hi Frank, yeah,, i'm wondering if im stick to my decision or buy the new one im not sure if how much that will be cost to repair and then purchasing another 50mm 1,8 if that could be a great idea?

Another thought is purchase a good used lens. I bought the Nikon 12-24mm lens used on the Nikonians site in that price range. Love that lens.
Eddie

well, that is in my second option if i could get in that price range, thanks Ed