Canon body for landscape

6D or 5D range depending on budget. I had a 6d and thought it was fantastic for landscape
 
While I agree with the posts above, it does depend on what lenses you have (if any). If you have EF-S lenses the bodies suggested won't be suitable.
 
mark4183 said:
its all about the lens choice.... most if not all bodies will pretty much do the same
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Except they don't. Frame rates for landscapes aren't important, dynamic range and pixel count are more important. A range of lenses with good edge to edge sharpness is more important than the ultimate wide aperture as well.

5DsR 5dS or 5d4, at a pinch at 5d3 or 6d would be usable. Anything else I would not want.
 
Back to my 80D - it has very good dynamic range and the pixel count is more than large enough - I have yet to have a dynamic range problem with a landscape (architecture is another thing altogether but I use different techniques rather than different kit). Might change my mind if I was producing massive (side of barn sized) photographs but for A3 sized prints (or even the occasional A2) the 80D is well more than adequate. There is no point in paying for theoretical technological advantages if they do not show up in the final print.
 
mark4183 said:
its all about the lens choice.... most if not all bodies will pretty much do the same
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Yes and no.

17-40 would do as bad job on the original 5D just as 5DsR. The corner sharpness just isn't there and the distortion is massive.

Moving on to 16-35mm f/4 a good copy is likely to out-resolve even the best ones out there. There is a massive difference between 18 and 50MP. You can more than double printing sizes, and resolve far more details in the scene.

john.margetts said:
Back to my 80D - it has very good dynamic range and the pixel count is more than large enough - I have yet to have a dynamic range problem with a landscape (architecture is another thing altogether but I use different techniques rather than different kit). Might change my mind if I was producing massive (side of barn sized) photographs but for A3 sized prints (or even the occasional A2) the 80D is well more than adequate. There is no point in paying for theoretical technological advantages if they do not show up in the final print.
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A3 is very small and even 30D from the beginning of the last decade could do it.

When you get into A1, A0 or crop more heavily it starts to really show. But you may not want to or need to. It is your needs and your choice.
 
SFTPhotography said:
Except they don't. Frame rates for landscapes aren't important, dynamic range and pixel count are more important. A range of lenses with good edge to edge sharpness is more important than the ultimate wide aperture as well.

5DsR 5dS or 5d4, at a pinch at 5d3 or 6d would be usable. Anything else I would not want.
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Except pixel count and dynamic range means nothing if you have no idea what to do with the gear. The most important part of your camera is the soft matter behind the viewfinder. Asking for camera advise spells to me "not very experienced" so maybe something more accessible than the highest-ranking canon bodies would be sensible.
And, could one add, maybe other brands could come into play as well.
 
Some good advice here guys but we still don't know about the OPs budget?

Also, @telscossie wasn't it yourself asking about a Nikon for sports round about £400?

If so what did you buy in the end, what lenses have you got, do you own a tripod and what budget is left for your landscape kit? Is landscape going to be your main genre or just on the side of sports?
 
LongLensPhotography said:
When you get into A1, A0 or crop more heavily it starts to really show. But you may not want to or need to. It is your needs and your choice.
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actually, its the op's choice - I already have my camera. If someone is asking a basic question as is actually asked in the opening post it is safe to assume that they are not a top-end professional selling a couple of dozen A0 prints each week. My contribution here has been designed to help the op.
 
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LongLensPhotography said:
Yes and no.

17-40 would do as bad job on the original 5D just as 5DsR. The corner sharpness just isn't there and the distortion is massive.
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The edge sharpness is there if you stop down, by f/11 and above and it's not too bad at all (on a full frame camera), especially for the price this lens sells for these days second hand. If you want something that's sharper wide open then it's quite a lot more money for the 16-35 f/4 L IS. Also, ask your self how often a landscape photographer will be shooting a 16mm or 17mm lens wide open? So for a landscape photographer who's on a tight budget, it's still worth thinking about a used, mint-ish 17-40 L. It's an old lens design now, but if you can't afford a 16-35 L then it's better than doing without.

Unless you've got the 5DsR; in which case, Canon has issued a list of lenses they suggest are used with this camera to get the best out of it, so refer to that (and bear the cost of investing in those lenses in mind if thinking about buying a 5DsR!).
 
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Mr Badger said:
Snip:

The edge sharpness is there if you stop down, by f/11 and above and it's not too bad at all (on a full frame camera), especially for the price this lens sells for these days second hand. If you want something that's sharper wide open then it's quite a lot more money for the 16-35 f/4 L IS. Also, ask your self how often a landscape photographer will be shooting a 16mm or 17mm lens wide open? So for a landscape photographer who's on a tight budget, it's still worth thinking about a used, mint-ish 17-40 L. It's an old lens design now, but if you can't afford a 16-35 L then it's better than doing without.

Unless you've got the 5DsR; in which case, Canon has issued a list of lenses they suggest are used with this camera to get the best out of it, so refer to that (and bear the cost of investing in those lenses in mind if thinking about buying a 5DsR!).
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I have a number of shots from my 1DsII and 17-40 lens shot at f/11 and even f/14 that still lack critical sharpness in the corners (the rest being tack sharp) and I really wish they were taken with another lens. I have tried four copies of the said lens, and spoken to a number of landscape photographers back in the day and there was always a consensus it is a trash lens.

I can shoot 16-35 at f/4 and get far sharper shots every single time. So please do not tell us 17-40 is suitable for landscapes on high mp camera* (12MP or above). It is fine I'm sure for journalists and portrait photographers who couldn't care less about pixel perfect corners.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
I have a number of shots from my 1DsII and 17-40 lens shot at f/11 and even f/14 that still lack critical sharpness in the corners (the rest being tack sharp) and I really wish they were taken with another lens. I have tried four copies of the said lens, and spoken to a number of landscape photographers back in the day and there was always a consensus it is a trash lens.

I can shoot 16-35 at f/4 and get far sharper shots every single time. So please do not tell us 17-40 is suitable for landscapes on high mp camera* (12MP or above). It is fine I'm sure for journalists and portrait photographers who couldn't care less about pixel perfect corners.
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So there are no good landscape photos taken with the 17-40 L lens then?
 
Mr Badger said:
So there are no good landscape photos taken with the 17-40 L lens then?
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Plenty of good landscapes taken with all sorts of lenses. And many of them not tack sharp in the corners - or even tack sharp at all. I am firmly with Henri Cartier Bresson - sharpness is a bourgeois concept.
 
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SFTPhotography said:
Edge to edge sharpness is just as important as front to back sharpness.
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Why, in Odin's name? There is something to be said for the main elements being sharp (I will not confuse you with the idea of using haze or fog) but if someone spent their time peering at the corners of one of my pictures rather than the subject I would be rather insulted.
 
john.margetts said:
Why, in Odin's name? There is something to be said for the main elements being sharp (I will not confuse you with the idea of using haze or fog) but if someone spent their time peering at the corners of one of my pictures rather than the subject I would be rather insulted.
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Because if the sharpness isn’t uniform and the image blurry at either side then it’ll look stupid and almost, if not more so, as stupid as one where the background is blurry but the front isn’t.

Using superior zooms and/or the best prime lenses makes the most of it of the sensor. If you display at low res it doesn’t matter but on big prints this shows.

I don’t like mist or fog as conditions. I like clear conditions myself.
 
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SFTPhotography said:
You're right. Pictures look better when the sides are blurry and hard to see.
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So you are saying that the 17-40L lens is completely incapable of focusing the edges of the image and leaves them blurred and hard to see? My cheap and cheerful 18-55 (non L) lens performs better than that.

Any lens I bought that left the edges blurry and hard to see would go straight back to the shop for a full refund.
 
Shock and horror and I have a LOST a prospective sale thanks to crappy 17-40 corners, and partly due to it not being shot on the said high MP dSLRs. There you go.

The only way 17-40 works at the wide end is pretty much in vertical format, close and prominent foreground and a fair amount of sky which could be a little defocused. Horizontals are a nightmare because edges are always focused significantly closer than the centre. The old 16-35s were just as bad in fact so there was not much choice back in the day.

I am only surprised canon is still selling it.
 
john.margetts said:
So you are saying that the 17-40L lens is completely incapable of focusing the edges of the image and leaves them blurred and hard to see? My cheap and cheerful 18-55 (non L) lens performs better than that.

Any lens I bought that left the edges blurry and hard to see would go straight back to the shop for a full refund.
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It is rather hard to argue about lens sharpness in the 18-55mm appreciation society :)
 
SFTPhotography said:
Lol post of the day :)
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I would have thought it was also hard for someone to argue about the sharpness of a Canon lens when they seem to use Nikon kit all the time? ;)

There have been some very nice landscape photos taken with the 17-40 L, just have a look on Flickr if you don't believe me. Anyway, it's probably best if we agree to differ and get back on topic.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
It is rather hard to argue about lens sharpness in the 18-55mm appreciation society :)
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Rather strange that my posts here get met by sarcasm. Do you not have anything else to offer - such as actual reasoning?
 
Mr Badger said:
I would have thought it was also hard for someone to argue about the sharpness of a Canon lens when they seem to use Nikon kit all the time? ;)
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I have had my fair share of duff Nikon lenses. I only use 2.8 zooms and 1.4/1.8 primes now. The F4 zooms just don't have the edge to edge sharpness required and my all accounts the 17-40 is even worse than the Nikkor 16-35
 
john.margetts said:
Rather strange that my posts here get met by sarcasm. Do you not have anything else to offer - such as actual reasoning?
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john.margetts said:
(I will not confuse you with the idea of using haze or fog) .
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Maybe because you met my post with sarcasm, or at least condescension.

This might not be the thread for you if you are happy with your 18-55.
 
SFTPhotography said:
Maybe because you met my post with sarcasm, or at least condescension.

This might not be the thread for you if you are happy with your 18-55.
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I didn't actually say I was happy with my 18-55, I stated that it performs better than you claim Canon's 17-40L does - which is actually a comment on your very strange claim.
 
john.margetts said:
I didn't actually say I was happy with my 18-55, I stated that it performs better than you claim Canon's 17-40L does - which is actually a comment on your very strange claim.
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A workshop client of mine had one. They sent me some RAWs over as they were concerned about their focus ability prior to booking their course with me. A lot of people worry about this "front to back sharpness" and give very little thought to side to side sharpness which is dictated by the lens optics. You can control the front to back sharpness by use of aperture and focus point - that much I assume you know. However a lot of the time with landscape pictures foreground features are in one side of the frame, usually towards a corner where the lens (even stopped down) will shade and be less sharp so although the focus technique of the photographer might be upto the job, the lens might not be if the sharpness falls far off the middle of the frame. A good way to tell, with landscape pictures is to take a shot which has foreground grasses at an even distance across the frame - if they are sharp in the bottom middle but soft at the edges the lens is to blame - not the technique.

Something a little like this - taken with a far superior Nikkor 24-70 F2.8 on a Nikon D810 at IIRC 38mm

_DSC2469 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Now what you cannot see at this res, but you can at full res - is that the grasses in the bottom middle are tack sharp, but the ones, despite them being at the same distance on the focal plane (lets not get into tilt movements) are softer and quite noticeably so. Had I used my even more superior Sigma ART 35 the difference would be less but I didn't want to risk a lens change with so many midges around.

Back to that 17-40 you are so keen to defend as soon as I downloaded the file from we transfer and loaded it into Aperture 3 and saw the 17-40 was used I knew it wasn't the focus technique was fine as the foreground in the middle of the shot was fine, but at the edges it was like mush. Same applied to the distant subject. It really is the biggest pile of crap going and a totally unacceptable lens in this day and age and anyone who uses one for commercial shooting needs their head examined IMHO. I do shoot Nikon, but I've had enough experience of Canon bodies and lenses (I always ask workshop clients to send on a few pictures to gauge where they are at) to know what is worth having and what's worth using as a paper weight.
 
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As I said first of all, yes the 16-35 f/4 L IS is a better lens than the 17-40 f/4 L, which is now a fairly old design and shows its age if it's not stopped down. However, stick it on f/16 or above and I bet most people would be hard put to tell the difference between that and the 16-35 f4 L IS in a lot of cases with landscape photographs taken using a fairly decent full frame camera. As I said, it wouldn't be my choice for a 5DsR, or even the 5D Mk iv. But I'd hope that people who'd budgeted for that sort of top-end camera had also budgeted for top-end lenses to go with it.

However, for a lot of people, spending the best part of a grand (or more) on a lens is hard to justify, if not afford, particularly if they might not use that particular focal length most of the time. In which case, cheaper options are available, including the 17-40 L. So let's not get too sniffy about it, if it was that bad a lens do you think Canon would have sold so many... and for so long? It fills a gap and, like it or not, it's produced a lot of very nice-looking landscape shots over the years, and probably also enabled a lot of people learn their craft with a wide angle lens.
 
Mr Badger said:
As I said first of all, yes the 16-35 f/4 L IS is a better lens than the 17-40 f/4 L, which is now a fairly old design and shows its age if it's not stopped down. However, stick it on f/16 or above and I bet most people would be hard put to tell the difference between that and the 16-35 f4 L IS in a lot of cases with landscape photographs taken using a fairly decent full frame camera. As I said, it wouldn't be my choice for a 5DsR, or even the 5D Mk iv. But I'd hope that people who'd budgeted for that sort of top-end camera had also budgeted for top-end lenses to go with it.

However, for a lot of people, spending the best part of a grand (or more) on a lens is hard to justify, if not afford, particularly if they might not use that particular focal length most of the time. In which case, cheaper options are available, including the 17-40 L. So let's not get too sniffy about it, if it was that bad a lens do you think Canon would have sold so many... and for so long? It fills a gap and, like it or not, it's produced a lot of very nice-looking landscape shots over the years, and probably also enabled a lot of people learn their craft with a wide angle lens.
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Err so you justify 3k for a body, but can't afford a sub £1k lens. I'd rather have cheaper and older camera and only the very best lenses.

The whole argument that flickr is full of decent looking 17-40 landscapes - a reasonable bunch of them mine - is null and void since you are looking at a web size preview and have no idea how badly these image collapse at higher magnification. Hell, I can probably have something decent to post even using a stupid phone, so there you go ladies and gentlemen - go and buy a new smartphone.

Canon sold a lot of just terrible lenses and 17-40 is in that respect one of the worst ones over £100.
Thankfully their updated lineup is exemplary but they are indeed still shifting some of the old stock of this abomination. An old design need not be horrible - take 70-200mm f/2.8 non-IS or 400mm f/4.6 prime for example. Both PERFECT, just without IS and smaller MFD.
 
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This whole argument is null and void until the OP says what use the pictures will have. For all we know they are going to be seen on a phone on Instagram and never be printed. The only thing you do seem to have done (on both sides) is scare the OP away!
 
I don't know if you're still looking at this thread but I would strongly suggest a full format Canon body (maybe a 6d Mk 1 if you're short of cash) because once you start cropping a crop body you will start to see problems. And for what it's worth my 17-40 f4 is pretty duff once you start looking too closely at the results.
 
Also the whole idea that once must have wideangle for landscapes is usually complete and total bull. Great things can be done with 24-70mm as a staple choice and many indeed benefit from telephoto. Ultrawide is for playing with perspective, exaggerating foreground, etc and NOT Getting IT ALL IN.
 
justinminns said:
Unless you really need prints the size of a house I'd put the 5D mkIV first for the better dynamic range
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Sometimes I get asked for it so that is specifically for that reason.
 
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