Beginner landscape lens choice

Petejones

Petejones

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Of my 2 lenses I tend to think that my 18 - 55 lens will be more effective as a landscape lens

The other option is my 55 - 250 which I tend to use more for wildlife

Is there an argument for using the longer lens for landscape or should I stick with the shorter lens
 
I was getting my bearings and planning some shots yesterday but I only had the long lens with me and I can't say I was excited by the results from that which made me think it's probably not the way to go

Still loads to learn
 
The longer lens will require you to be more selective on seeing an attractive image within the wider landscape. It depends on what you like shooting, it might not be for you?
 
Simply use the lens that suits you best at the time. Wider gets more in, or use the longer lens to pick out detail or frame your shot to save cropping later.
 
TBH for the weight of both lenses i would always make sure that i took both with me.

You could try making a panorama with your longer lens and compare it to a similar shot taken at the wider end of your range.

Location will also make a massive difference.
 
Any lens is a landscape lens. It's what you put in front of our defines the shot.
 
minnnt said:
You could try making a panorama with your longer lens and compare it to a similar shot taken at the wider end of your range.
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You could, but there's really no point. They would look exactly the same.
 
I follow a few landscape photographers on Flickr and am always surprised by how many of their shots aren't all that wide and quite a few use longer lenses. The longer lenses are better for bringng backgrounds closer and isolating/picking out a subject. Quite a lot of mountain/hill range shots seem to look better shot with longer lenses as it compresses the distance between peaks.

I'm no expert but I'd be tempted to carry both. I've found my 15 - 85 to usually be wide enough but quite a few times not long enough.
 
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My favourite lens for landscapes is my Tamron 90mm lens. The fashion for using wide angle lenses for landscapes is just that, a modern fashion. My Ilford Manual of Photography from the late 1950s is clear that you should always use a long lens for landscapes, also a fashion but not a modern one.
 
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StewartR said:
You could, but there's really no point. They would look exactly the same.
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Crikey, it just goes to show you really have to be careful what you believe on the internet:rolleyes:
Totally different perspective old fruit.
 
StewartR said:
You could, but there's really no point. They would look exactly the same.
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minnnt said:
No they wouldn't. The compression of a longer focal length can make quite a bit of difference.
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Craig20264 said:
Crikey, it just goes to show you really have to be careful what you believe on the internet:rolleyes:
Totally different perspective old fruit.
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OK, time for a thought experiment. (Actually it needn't be a thought experiment. You could do this.) Put a very long lens on your camera, get a friend to stand a long way away, and take a portrait shot (1). Without moving either you or your friend, switch to a very wide angle lens and take another shot (2). Crop and zoom so that the size of the head in 2 is the same as in 1. Then compare. You'll see that they are the same.

Many people, including you two it seems, believe that different types of lenses produce different perspective effects - telephoto compression, wide angle distortion, and so on. In fact the choice of lens has nothing to do with it and what you see is determined solely by the relationship between the camera, the subject, and the background.
 
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StewartR said:
Many people, including you two it seems, believe that different types of lenses produce different perspective effects - telephoto compression, wide angle distortion, and so on. In fact the choice of lens has nothing to do with it and what you see is determined solely by the relationship between the camera, the subject, and the background.
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But the final image is an effect of the magnification applied, in your example it might be that from the wide angle lens you wouldn't be able to recognise your friend.

The reason for stitching panoramas is extra detail and so you don't have to junk the top and bottom of a photo and I suppose also the avoidance of field curvature and a level of control on the perspective (cylinder, spherical etc).
 
You're both right guys, @StewartR is technically right that it makes no difference to the perspective and @Nawty is right that from a practical purposes there's a huge difference. I'd take the stitched shot every time if the scene permitted it,

But @StewartR gets the Brucie Bonus for also being right that @Craig20264 is wrong.


Most older landscape photography books tend to recommend mid-telephoto lenses for landscape shots. The modern UWA fashion for landscapes is very easy to get wrong.
 
All fair points

I've taken both lenses out and got some decent results with both yesterday

Annoyingly the best shot I think I've taken this weekend was with my iPhone as it was the one I had with me when the light was most interesting

I'll do some editing in a bit and post the results later on
 
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Petejones said:
Annoyingly the best shot I think I've taken this weekend was with my iPhone as it was the one I had with me when the light was most interesting
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Why would you be annoyed? Honestly, this looking down on phone camera shots doesn't make anyone appear a better/proper photographer.
 
No sure if 10-20 or 10-22 is compatible with your camera but I reckon they would be a good choice for landscape too.
 
I'd like to roll in a slightly different way of thinking about lenses. It is assumed that using a wide angle allows you to 'get more in' to a shot compared to a longer focal length. Instead, it's better to use wideangle to 'get inside' a scene and include details that are closer than one would get with a longer lens, as well as details further away. So your 18-55 when used at the wide end will allow you to capture stuff that's close and details further away (though they'll be quite small) while your telephoto will exclude close stuff and will isolate more distant details.

I would use both lenses, though probably the 18-55 most of the time. It can also be useful to have a fast prime (say a 50mm f1.8) to isolate detail using a shallow depth of field instead of just cropping in.
 
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Alastair said:
Why would you be annoyed? Honestly, this looking down on phone camera shots doesn't make anyone appear a better/proper photographer.
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I'm not looking down on anything, I just would have preferred to use my dslr as it offers a lot more flexibility when it comes to processing
 
ancient_mariner said:
I'd like to roll in a slightly different way of thinking about lenses. It is assumed that using a wide angle allows you to 'get more in' to a shot compared to a longer focal length. Instead, it's better to use wideangle to 'get inside' a scene and include details that are closer than one would get with a longer lens, as well as details further away. So your 18-55 when used at the wide end will allow you to capture stuff that's close and details further away (though they'll be quite small) while your telephoto will exclude close stuff and will isolate more distant details.

I would use both lenses, though probably the 18-55 most of the time. It can also be useful to have a fast prime (say a 500mm f1.8) to isolate detail using a shallow depth of field instead of just cropping in.
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I haven't had the opportunity to try a prime lens, what are the advantages of these?
 
Petejones said:
I haven't had the opportunity to try a prime lens, what are the advantages of these?
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Prime lenses tend to be sharper (per £) have better optical qualities and larger max apertures.

Of course that's a sweeping generalisation, there are some awesome zoom lenses, and some appalling prime's. But for instance the new Canon 50mm 1.8 stm is less than £100 and is brilliant. However at f11 shooting a landscape in good light - only an expert could tell the difference between it and your kit zoom at 50mm.
 
I use a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at the moment. I love it; it's super sharp but it's quite pricey. It's over £1,000 to buy.
I also sometimes use a short telephoto lens to isolate parts of a scene and focus the eye.

I found this guide to lenses for landscapes pretty useful.
 
I made a typo in my post - should have said 50mm f1.8.

The advantage from a landscape point of view is that you can reduce depth of field of sharp focus in order to make it the centre of attention in an image and throw a distracting background OOF. They are also often cheapish and have better optical properties than kit zoom lenses, plus you can use them at small f numbers/large apertures in low-light situations to reduce camera shake.

Here's an example of using a 50mm lens at f2.0 on a crop sensor body to limit depth of field of sharp focus for a landscape-style shot.
Autumn%20matte-2_zpscs5uwxjq.jpg~original
 
I find a long lens is much better in hills and mountains than a wide alternative, allows you to pick out details and also wide images of far away subjects. You can create a much better sense of scale in that environment with a long telephoto. The county I live is very flat though and I find shooting here with the 24-70 allows me to create more of a 3D look because I can use foreground which is a bit limited with the 70-200mm. Just depends where you are really and what you shoot most. Long lenses are good for woodland too
 
it's starting to make sense (I think), when you say a "fast lens" what are you referring to?
 
IMG_1834 cropped.jpg
This was my opportunistic iphone shot, unfortunately I was inside and this was through a window but not a bad little view
 
Petejones said:
View attachment 60700
This was my opportunistic iphone shot, unfortunately I was inside and this was through a window but not a bad little view
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Hmm, sunset in the middle of the frame requires something rather special in terms of surrounding interest, in this instance I think having it 'on the thirds' would have worked better.

Also, the rest of the scene is rather underexposed.
 
harbour 1.jpg

I was quite pleased with this one until I realised I didn't get the whole of the lamp in and it's a bit wonky but the intention I think was correct, just the execution that needs work.

as an example how would a "fast lens" have improved/impaired this shot?
 
Nawty said:
Hmm, sunset in the middle of the frame requires something rather special in terms of surrounding interest, in this instance I think having it 'on the thirds' would have worked better.

Also, the rest of the scene is rather underexposed.
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I'll have a play with photoshop and see if I can work out how to bring this up a bit
 
Petejones said:
View attachment 60703

I was quite pleased with this one until I realised I didn't get the whole of the lamp in and it's a bit wonky but the intention I think was correct, just the execution that needs work.

as an example how would a "fast lens" have improved/impaired this shot?
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It wouldn't. You need to work on what you're trying to show and compositional skills rather than worrying too much about the technicalities at this stage. I quite like the iPhone shot for the mood, but it's not usually a good idea to shoot into the sun like that, at least while it's still quite high in the sky as it just appears as a distracting blown out ball. The second image isn't doing anything for me, but you have seen that the light was quite nice in that direction. Keep at it and let us know if we can be of any help
 
As previously mentioned, in landscape shots the composition makes all the difference however at the risk of stating the obvious, a fast lens can help isolate the subject of the photo more effectively by blurring the background. For example referring to the shot above, if you could get on eye level with closest boat then it might looks nice with a slightly out of focus background containing the other boat and the pier. Or the same concept with the boat sat on the pier using the crane or something as an out of focus background.
 
Yeees but in this instance the boat is too far away (at this focal length) to generate any significant depth of field and all that would happen is that some parts of the image might look annoyingly slightly blurry. The composition isn't right for a shallow DoF.
 
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