# Landscape Lens



## jaayres20 (Apr 30, 2015)

I am a wedding photographer but I love taking pictures of landscapes. I do not have a lot of experience but want to do it as more of a hobby especially now that I ordered the 5DSr. I mostly have wedding and portrait orientated lenses. I am looking at getting the 17mm or 24mm tilt shift lenses. For those of you who shoot landscapes, would those be the lenses you get and if you could only have one which one? Right now I have lenses like the 24-70 and 70-200 which may not be the best.


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## bholliman (Apr 30, 2015)

You should also consider the EF 16-35 f/4 IS lens for landscapes. Its an excellent all-around lens and the price is reasonable.

The 17 and 24mm T/S lenses are also fantastic, but I don't own either. I'm hoping to buy a 24 TS within the next year.


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## eli452 (Apr 30, 2015)

The 24 TS is very sharp and great for panoramas.


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## dak723 (Apr 30, 2015)

I would just put the 24-70 on the camera and shoot away. I haven't used a prime in 30 years as the zoom gives so much more compositional versatility and the quality of today's zooms is excellent. I have never needed to go wider than 24mm on a full frame, but it may depend on what types of shots you like to take.


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## Zeidora (Apr 30, 2015)

5dsr and zoom are no good match, IMHO. 24 is a classic landscape focal length. However, if you use you 24-70 and find 24 not wide enough, then there's your answer. 17 is quite wide; I possibly shoot more with 21, but there is no 21 TSE. with 5dsr, cropping may be an option from 17. 
I haven't had a TS lens on SLR for a while, and rather go 4x5" if I need that sort of control. 

Re versatility of zooms, that's one thing, but if you are getting a 5dsr (I have one on order as well), you think about enlargements and about detail. Even if zooms have gotten much better, primes still have the edge.

If you can, rent some of those lenses and see which one you like. "Landscape" is a wide term, and nobody can tell you how you see.


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## quod (Apr 30, 2015)

I have both the TS-E 17 and 24 II. The 24 is a little sharper and more usable for general landscape use, e.g. you can use a UV filter, it takes 82mm polarizers, you can use a standard Lee filter kit, etc. The 17 is more specialized for ultra-wide shots and tight interiors. Both are great lenses. If you need to go ultra-wide with the 24, you can do a shift pano or regular pano. By the way, my landscape kit is the 16-35/4, 70-200/2.8 II, TS-E 17, TS-E 24 II, and 40 pancake. Of this mix, I use the TS-E 17 the least (although when you need it, it is usually the only option).


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## privatebydesign (Apr 30, 2015)

24 TS-E MkII, no question.


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## atkinsonphoto (May 1, 2015)

I shoot lots of landscapes at 200+mm, you just need to use a tripod. Mountains look more dramatic with some tele compression.


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## privatebydesign (May 1, 2015)

atkinsonphoto said:


> I shoot lots of landscapes at 200+mm, you just need to use a tripod. Mountains look more dramatic with some tele compression.



200+mm doesn't give your mountains _"tele compression"_, your perspective does.


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## atkinsonphoto (May 1, 2015)

Thanks for the clarification. Do you agree that long lenses are good for landscapes too?


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## privatebydesign (May 1, 2015)

atkinsonphoto said:


> Thanks for the clarification. Do you agree that long lenses are good for landscapes too?



I agree that long lenses can be used to good effect for landscape images on occasions. And because we can only deal with broad generalisations and the OP already has a 70-200 I still feel the 24 TS-E would be a much better 'special' lens for his landscaping efforts. 

There is a good solid background behind the more general use of wider than 'normal' focal lenses for the majority of landscape images and we have already touched on it, perspective. In general (don't you hate that expression) landscape images work better when the viewer has the perspective such that they can 'walk' into the image, this is achieved with 17-35mm lenses on the 135 format, tele lens landscape images rely more on other aspects of mental stimulation than the 'natural' feeling of 'walking' into the image.


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## tolusina (May 1, 2015)

Hopefully, Sporgon will reply here, from the stunning panorama's I've seen posted by him, his advice will be well taken.
I'll not presume to speak for him, but I will post a link to his work which speaks voluminously and elegantly for itself.
http://www.buildingpanoramics.com/

Assuming his opinion has not changed, the reply I'd expect him to post may surprise pleasantly, it's very easy on finances.


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## sanj (May 1, 2015)

dak723 said:


> I would just put the 24-70 on the camera and shoot away. I haven't used a prime in 30 years as the zoom gives so much more compositional versatility and the quality of today's zooms is excellent. I have never needed to go wider than 24mm on a full frame, but it may depend on what types of shots you like to take.



I agree. Shoot with this lens at f11 to your hearts content. If after that you feel the need for another lens you would not need to consult anyone....


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## Eldar (May 1, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> 24 TS-E MkII, no question.


+1


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## martti (May 1, 2015)

The 24 mm TS II lens is optically and mechanically fantastic. Also, you can put filters (like ND) on it unlike the 17mm TS. A bigger monitor screen might be a good idea to sort of see how the DOF is situated in your shot.
Or shooting tethered with a slate.


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## jeffa4444 (May 1, 2015)

We work with a large number of professional landscape photographers both the TS-17 and the TS-24II are great lenses but Ive noticed of the Canon shooters most have the TS-17. They pretty much all have the 24-70mm F2.8L II 
but dont under-estimate the vesitility of the 24-105mm f4L 

I recently purchased the 16-35mm f4L IS USM lens and it would be a great partner for the 5DS R you dont really need fast lenses for landscape where manual is de-rigger and optimum f stop is f11


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## quod (May 1, 2015)

atkinsonphoto said:


> Thanks for the clarification. Do you agree that long lenses are good for landscapes too?


Yes. You will get compression and a narrow field of view, which can be useful in some shots. All of my gigapans are shot with telephotos.


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## Sporgon (May 1, 2015)

tolusina said:


> Hopefully, Sporgon will reply here, from the stunning panorama's I've seen posted by him, his advice will be well taken.
> I'll not presume to speak for him, but I will post a link to his work which speaks voluminously and elegantly for itself.
> http://www.buildingpanoramics.com/
> 
> Assuming his opinion has not changed, the reply I'd expect him to post may surprise pleasantly, it's very easy on finances.



Thanks for that Tolusina. Nice to be appreciated ! 

A question with many answers. One of the best UK genuine professional landscape photographers, Colin Prior, uses exactly what the OP has plus the 24 TSE, at least when he is not using large format. 

Most of my landscape type shots are panoramic stitches, each section in portrait orientation, so I'm only concerned with a vertical field of view, I can go as wide as I want by just shooting more frames. So lens choice is dictated by how much foreground I want. Many people have said how the 24 mil is a versatile landscape lens; private talks about being able to walk into the landscape picture which I think is a good way of looking at it. If you put a 40 mil on its side you get the same vertical field of view as a 24 mil in landscape orientation, and that is what I tend to use the most, a 40mm pancake in fact, although it's beginning to lose favour with me to an old 50mm Nikkor f/2 lens which is superb. I generally find that unless you are going to pay an awful lot of money, a slower lens is generally better across the frame when stopped down than a faster one. So for instance irrespective of the movements on a 24 TSE f3.5 lens I would always chose that for landscape shooting over a 24 f/1.4. 

I think that producing a larger format through stitching makes it much easier to achieve a high quality result. Producing the same technical quality on a single frame is much harder, and you have to pay much more attention to technique. Also with a larger format you are using a longer focal length lens, so getting more magnification of your distant subject. I've struggled to get what I consider to be worthwhile landscape shots with a longish lens, bearing in mind that the length of the lens is relative to the format. So for instance the standard, ''50mm equivalent on FF'' lens on a 10 x 8 camera is 300mm. So the guy using a 200 on his gigapan is benefiting from magnification, not ''compression'' anyway. 

So if the OP already has top end 24 to 200 mil in zooms, the obvious choice for single frame landscape pictures is the 24 TSE IMO. Where possible use tilt and shoot at a wider aperture.


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## Deleted member 91053 (May 5, 2015)

quod said:


> atkinsonphoto said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks for the clarification. Do you agree that long lenses are good for landscapes too?
> ...



A friend of mine does the bulk of his landscape work with a Canon 24-105 F4 (he has just added a 16-35 F4) and, in my opinion his best work, with a Canon 600 F4 L IS. Personally I use the 16-35, 24-70 and 800mm focal lengths for my landscapes (plus, occasionally, 300mm) so without knowing the OP's exact needs it is difficult to make specific recommendations - other than the fact that the long lenses tend to get heavy!
I do really fancy a 24 TSE however!


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## lholmes549 (May 5, 2015)

My chosen genre is Landscape and I have recently added the 16-35mm f/4L IS to my kit. 
I really recommend this lens; it is extremely versatile, sharp from corner to corner and has a 77mm filter thread which is a massive bonus for me personally because I have the 24-105mm which has the same size filter thread so my lee system only needs one adaptor ring.
A lot of landscape photographers use the tilt-shifts but I just haven't been able to justify the price tag quite yet.


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## quod (May 5, 2015)

Sporgon said:


> So the guy using a 200 on his gigapan is benefiting from magnification, not ''compression'' anyway.


You can benefit from both, actually, including in a gigapan shot.


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## privatebydesign (May 6, 2015)

quod said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > So the guy using a 200 on his gigapan is benefiting from magnification, not ''compression'' anyway.
> ...



Only if you don't understand what "compression" means when used in a conversation about focal length.


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## Hjalmarg1 (May 6, 2015)

johnf3f said:


> quod said:
> 
> 
> > atkinsonphoto said:
> ...


I also use the 24-70/2.8II and 16-35/4 (because 24mm wasn't enough) for landscapes when depht of view is required to put foreground and background in focus but, when compression is required nothing beats a good telephoto lens.
If you plan to stitch photos simply go to the TSE 24II, which is the best at this FL.


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