Is 16mm wide enough on a crop sensor for landscape?

I

ian-83

Messages
1,556
Edit My Images
Yes
I am looking to get into landscape photography and the widest lens I have is a 16-85mm Nikon on a D300 so equals to around 24-127 on FF.
Will this be ok for starting landscape? as I see lots of nice pics on here and people seem to use things like the Sigma 10-20 which I don't want to spend out on if I am not going to benefit much more form it.

Also have a square filter set with one and two stop soft and hard grads so I got that covered and also a piece of welding glass for longer exposures.
 
Tbh it'll do for the purposes you are using it for and to be honest if you really can't get wide enough why not shoot two images and make a mini panoramic?
 
wides and ultra wides are only worthwhile for landscapes where you have interesting foreground subjects. If your trying to pack in a view that is distant they can end up just looking far away, so the 16-85 is perfectly adequate for most situations and when its too long you can stitch a multiple of shots into a panorama.

Having said that, i might have a Sigma 10-20 for sale soon lol! (Now got a 14-24)
 
I had seen a guide to taking panoromics with a guide how to stitch them together after in photoshop so think I will do that if i want a nice wide scene.
 
Depends on the kinds of shots your taking I'd say, ultrawides work best for capturing the very near(intersting foreground) and the very far(big skys) but are less effective for picking out for distance peices of landscape.

I find I use by 10-22 most of the time for landscape shots in the cotswolds(albeit not always at the wide end) and my 15-85 in more exotic landscape like the alpes.

One thing to consider is that the wide you got the harder it is to get a filter system, your having to use speical adapators, 1 slot holders or larger sizes to avoid vignetting.
 
ian-83 said:
I am looking to get into landscape photography and the widest lens I have is a 16-85mm Nikon on a D300 so equals to around 24-127 on FF.
Will this be ok for starting landscape? as I see lots of nice pics on here and people seem to use things like the Sigma 10-20 which I don't want to spend out on if I am not going to benefit much more form it.

Also have a square filter set with one and two stop soft and hard grads so I got that covered and also a piece of welding glass for longer exposures.
Click to expand...

I've taken landscape shots from 10-300mm- at the end of the day it depends on the effect you want as mentioned. Plenty of people use UWA's ineffectively and you end up having to peer at the photo to see some hills so far away with nothing in the foreground that the scene just fails to captivate. Don't fall into the trap thinking that you need an UWA for landscape shots. Your 16-85 will be perfectly good and as has been said you can always stitch a few frames if needed.
Having said all that, UWA's allow for some real creativity and it's worth having one at some point- not just for landscapes.

That's probably not very helpful- don't buy one/ buy one:lol:
 
Stitching shots together will not give the same image as a wide angle lens.

Wide angle lenses are quite probably the most difficult to get the best from and personally I love them :love: but having said that I do wish that more people would try and step away from the... landscape = wide angle and lots of DoF... frame of mind.
 
Your 16-85mm should be fine, for now anyway. UWAs can be useful, but remember that they increase the field of view in all directions, not just horizontally. It's easy to end up with a photograph of an awful lot of unwanted foreground and sky, and a small range of hills (or whatever) in the middle.
 
MartynK said:
Your 16-85mm should be fine, for now anyway. UWAs can be useful, but remember that they increase the field of view in all directions, not just horizontally. It's easy to end up with a photograph of an awful lot of unwanted foreground and sky, and a small range of hills (or whatever) in the middle.
Click to expand...
...but put a rock in the foreground and it will be OK. ;)

I agree with a lot of the advice here. Using an ultra-wide for landscapes is HARD. The photo often ends up being more about the foreground than the background, and this has given rise to a lot of very dull landscape photos which have a basically dull rock in the foreground "to create some foreground interest". There's a whole school of landscape photographers who I'm convinced walk around looking at the ground just in front of their feet, rather than looking at the landscape. (There are certainly some at my local camera club!)
 
Is this wide enough for you?
20100706114632_imgp0586.jpg

Taken at 16mm on a Pentax K20 (a crop sensor)

It's a nice focal length on crop - definitely wide without too much distortion. There's a reason there were a lot of 24mm lenses for film cameras - that's the equivalent wide angle for full frame.
 
Its a common misconception that you need the widest possible lens for landscapes.

Shooting landscapes on a UWA for example (such as my Canon 10-22) can be very hard, and unless you have some very interesting foreground subjects (either straight ahead, or for example a pier, off to one side) you can end up with some very bland photographs!

Your current lens is more than adequate for the task. I've taken some superb landscape shots with my 70-200.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top