The Best Landscape Lens

Page updated: July 2007

When you're trying to find the best landscape lens, you should only be considering one type of lens: wide-angle.

Wide angle prime and zoom lenses capture a very wide field of view, and are ideally suited for capturing all of the magnificent scenery in front of you.

The best landscape lenses are also exceptionally sharp, so that every detail is clearly rendered.

The Impact of Wide Angle

Why are wide-angle lenses the preferred lens for landscape photography?

The answer is simple: because they draw the viewer in.

When you attach a wide angle lens to your digital SLR camera, you'll notice that it is showing you a view of EVERYTHING that your eyes can see.

If you tilt one of these lenses down too far, you can even capture the tips of your feet at the very bottom of the image.

The neat part about viewing a beautiful landscape captured with a wide angle lens is that it makes you feel like you are part of the photo.

A wide-angle view gives the viewer the impression that they are standing right next to the photographer.

By way of comparison, standard and telephoto lenses are better at focusing on the details of the scene, and are not as good at capturing the "big picture".

The DSLR Cropping Effect

If you want to take landscape photos, getting a nice wide angle lens for your digital SLR is key.

This is because many digital SLR cameras have a crop factor, which eliminates parts of the image and creates an artificial zoom effect.

For example, a 28mm lens is a fairly wide angle lens when you attach it to a standard film SLR camera. However, this same lens on a digital SLR frames images more like a 42mm lens - no longer wide angle.

This means that a wide angle lens for a digital SLR must be VERY wide angle. In many cases, the best landscape lenses for a digital SLR camera are going to start around 11mm (16.5mm with DSLR crop) and can go all the way up to 15mm (22.5mm with DLSR crop).

Color and Clarity

This may come as a surprise, but the lens that you choose can affect both the COLOR and CLARITY of your images, regardless of the camera you attach them to.

For example, a cheap lens attached to the high-end Nikon D200 may yield images that are hard to tell apart from a high-quality lens attached to the (significantly cheaper) Nikon D40.

Since the lens is responsible for focusing the image onto the camera's sensor, the glass inside of the lens must be precise.

Here's the thing: light doesn't always bend in exactly the same way.

Cheap lenses just let the light pass through and do nothing to correct and re-focus errant beams of light. Expensive lenses are specifically designed to ensure that the image that winds up striking the camera's sensor is clean, clear and perfectly sharp.

If you really want your landscape photos to have impact, you're going to need to get the best glass that you're able to afford.

If you've got a Canon or Nikon digital SLR camera, these lenses are easy to identify: Canon's pro-quality lenses all bear the "L" designation while Nikon's include the letters "ED". Find a lens with either an L or an ED as part of the name, and you'll know that you're getting a great lens.

Zoom vs. Prime

When zoom lenses were first being developed, they didn't have the clarity and accuracy of lenses that didn't zoom (also called prime, or fixed focal length).

Since prime lenses didn't have to zoom in an out, none of the lens elements had to move, which made prime lenses more precise.

Today this is much less of an issue. The quality of zoom lenses has improved significantly, so that the images captured by them are hard to distinguish from those captured with a prime.

Since this is the case, you'll notice that many of the best landscape lenses that I have selected below all fall into a category of lenses called "wide-angle zooms".

I recommend the wide-angle zooms rather than the static primes simply because the zoom offers you a little more flexibility when you're trying to get just the right composition for your landscape.

The Best Landscape Lenses

CANON: EF 17-40mm f/4L USM


	Cost: $620 Filter Size: 77mm Size: 3.3 x 3.8in (83.5 x 96.8mm) Weight: 17.6oz (500g)	Lens Review User Reviews Compare Prices Buy From Adorama Buy From Amazon
Without a doubt, this is an exceptional wide angle zoom lens for anyone using a Canon digital SLR. The L designation means that the lens includes pro-quality optics, and the USM means that focus is quick and silent. The VERY few complaints about this lens are that it does not have a very wide maximum aperture. But if your primary goal is to use the lens for landscape photography, apertures in the middle of the range (f/8 to f/16) are much more common, so maximum aperture is less of an issue.

NIKON: Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X Pro DX AF


	Cost: $500 Filter Size: 77mm Size: 3.3 x 3.5in (89.5 x 84mm) Weight: 20.1oz (570g)	User Ratings User Reviews Buy From Adorama Buy From Amazon
This was a tough one, and ultimately I went for the option that seemed to provide the best value for the money. The issue here is the exceptional alternative to this lens - the Nikon 12-24mm f/4G ED AF-S - which also happens to cost DOUBLE the price. In the end, the reviews of this Tokina lens were so glowing (and the cons so minimal) that it seemed like a better choice as the best Nikon lens for landscape photography. However, if you do have money to spend, and want the absolute best optics you can get, then the Nikon 12-24mm will serve you well.

SONY: Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC


	Cost: $500 Filter Size: 77 Size: 3.2 x 3.3in (81 x 83.5mm) Weight: 16.6oz (470.6g)	User Ratings User Reviews Buy From Adorama
The Sigma 10-20mm lens has received rave reviews - although the majority of those reviews are for different camera mounts (Canon and Nikon). The lens with the Sony mount should not vary optically from the others and you get quite a lens for the price. One major benefit for the landscape photographer is the internal focusing system - since the front of the lens doesn't rotate, you use a polarizing filter and won't have to keep adjusting its orientation.

PENTAX: SMCP-DA 16-45mm f/4 ED-AL


	Cost: $400 Filter Size: 67mm Size: 3.6 x 2.8in (92 x 72mm) Weight: 12.9oz (365g)	User Ratings Sample Photos Compare Prices Buy From Adorama Buy From Amazon
For a modest price you get an exceptional landscape lens in the SMCP-DA 16-45mm. The Pentax DA lenses are specifically designed for the dimensions of digital SLR sensors, and this one includes the Pentax quick-shift focus system that allows you to easily switch from auto to manual focus. The zoom range on this lens is a bit wider than on other comparable wide-angle lenses which gives you the flexibility to also use it for portraits and other travel photography.

OLYMPUS: Zuiko 11-22mm f/2.8-3.5 E-ED


	Cost: $650 Filter Size: 72mm Size: 3.6 x 2.9in (92.5 x 75mm) Weight: 17.1oz (485g)	Lens Review User Ratings Compare Prices Buy From Adorama Buy From Amazon
With a nice wide zoom range and superior optics, the 11-22mm is definitely the best landscape lens for Olympus digital SLR cameras. The lens is specifically designed to minimize distortion - something that is quite common on wide-angle zooms. A lens with this wide angle of view is especially important on an Olympus digital SLR, since the 4/3 sensor creates a 2x crop factor (making the lens frame images more like a 22-44mm lens on a standard film camera).