Landscape

[mcintosh]

Photography is my hobby and i really enjoy the outdoors. What is a good lens for landscape photography?

[rpcrowe]

Actually, you can use just about any lens for landscape work. Traditionally, photographers use normal to wide angle lenses when shooting landscapes but, I will often use longer focal lengths to isolate specific portions of the scenery and to compress distances...

Even the kit lenses (most often 18-55mm for crop cameras) can be effective in shooting landscapes, especially if used on a tripod and shot at f/8 or f/11.

I personally consider ultra wide angle lenses to be specialty lenses when used in landscape work. They need a significantly interesting object (like a rock or bush) in the foreground. Otherwise, what happens is that you end up with a large area of uninteresting foreground and a large area of equally uninteresting sky with just a small strip of interesting area between.

Some photographers contend that you must have a full-frame camera for effective landscape photography but, I disagee with that. I have been shooting everything (including landscapes) with my 1.6x cameras for years. My standard general use lens is the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and I have shot many of my landscapes with that lens. All the following images were shot with 1.6x cameras and various lenses...

19mm


24mm


28mm


31mm


38mm


55mm


These were shot with longer focal lengths to isolate features and compress distances

70mm


70mm


70mm


121mm


200mm


One valuable asset to landscape photography can be a good quality circular polarizing filter (CPL) which can darken the skies, accentuate the clouds and reduce reflections (thereby increasing color saturation) of rocks, water and foliage.

A good tripod is another almost essential accessory.

Finally, a decent photo editing software and proficiency with that software is IMO essental for landscape images.

[mcintosh]

Much thanks, the info is very helpful. Very beautiful shot. I now want to visit those sites.