Lens for Landscapes

paulocon

Hi,

I have a Nikon D50 with the kit lens (18-55mm). 99% of the time, I use the camera when out hill-walking. I am looking to purchase a new lens to give me a wider angle for landscape shots and am just looking for some recommendations on what to go for. I was looking at the Tokina 12-24mm and similar type lens from Nikor and Tamron. Has anyone used these lens and have any feedback?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

PopeBuckfastXVI

Investigate the Tokina 11-16 f/2.8, Sigma 10-20 f/4-5.6 or Sigma 8-16 f/4-5.6.

Editing for incorrect info!

djd80

I use a "Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC Macro"....

Pretty happy with it...

I picked up the Sigma 10-20 from a fellow on Adverts a few weeks ago, and after reading so many reviews on it, plenty of which were negative, I have to say I'm thrilled with it.

Fantastic little lens in my opinion. People always harp on about Sigmas poor quality control, so it's possible I'm just lucky, but this is my third Sigma lens (also have their 70-200mm f/2.8 and 30mm f/1.4) and all three have been great performers in my opinion.

That said, maybe the rumors of poor quality control are true, and maybe it depends who you shoot with (I use Canon) and how much 'pixel peeping' you do, but from my personal experience, they've been great, and the 10-20 has been excellent, too.


Below is a link to a high-res shot I took with it (Shot RAW, converted to Jpeg, with no changes made);


(10mm @ f/5.6, ISO400, 1/40 sec.)

Full Size:

http://photos3.pix.ie/87/EF/87EF78533F924646B9316C6F0A04DA7A-0000333410-0002481921-05184L-81E6FB0E100A4A18B7C4EDBFC680F071.jpg


So you can judge for yourself. There is distortion and such, and a bit of 'stretching' at the edges, but I think that's to be expected with any wide lens.

kfish2oo2

KKV - do you have the 70-200mm f/2.8 with image stabilization or without? I'm looking at that lens as my next purchase and was wondering how important IS would be considering the wide aperture. Also does it perform usably in low light (say for gigs etc)?

As for the OP - a friend of mine does some landscape work and has the Tokina - he's never complained about it.

Kfish, I don't have IS on my lens. I figured i'd use it mostly for sports or other such fast moving subjects, where is would be made redundant by my fast shutter speeds.

It performs quite well in low light, and you could shoot at 1/200 or 1/320 of a second with it, I'd say. I'd imagine IS would have to be very good to be much use (if it didn't let you come down to about 1/60 or so it'd be a waste of time, in my opinion).

So ultimately, like with all lens choices, it depends what you plan to use it for and whether the IS provides enough additional light to justify the additional money spent on it.

I'm just about to head out, but I think I used the lens to photograph inside a church a while ago, handheld. It was a pretty dark church. I'll post up the photo when I get back in two or so hours (its just a shot of the interior of the church if i recall correctly).

I also used it at a christening, where I was shooting at ISO 5,000 (no flash) and although the photos did look a bit worn because of this, prints came out grand, and the ISO performance made IS seem redundant to me (I used a 7D).

CabanSail

I have one of the older Sigma 10-20mm lenses. Shoot with it a lot. Very useful lens.

kfish, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. These were taken with the 70-200 2.8 non IS (It would appear the church interior photos I was talking about were only shot on the 30mm);



(1/400, f/5, ISO 800, 200mm)



(1/320, f/5.6, ISO 500, 200mm)


(1/125, f/8, ISO 640, 97mm)



(1/320th, f/5,6, ISO 6,400, 84mm)



The reason I posted those particular photos is because they all have natural light (no flash), and were used in different situations (and before anyone asks why I was shooting ISO6,400 at f/5.6 in a church, when I could just as easily have shot wide open at f/2.8 and thus massively reduced my ISO; I don't know. At the time it made sense, I'm sure!).


You should be able to view the full size photos on Pix to inspect a little further. I'm not sure how much editing these have had. I know the last one was run through Camera Raw with a small bit of noise reduction, though.

Also, just a few to be a bit more relevant to the thread, all shot with the Sigma 10-20mm 4-5.6
















Again, full sized versions should be available on Pix.ie.

dirtyghettokid

another vote for sigma 10-20mm! i use it on my nikon D80. i think it's pretty quality!


sunrise 8th january 2011 by jbredrebel, on Flickr


fingal county council buildings by jbredrebel, on Flickr


on my 5DmkII, the 24-105mm is sufficient enough for now, but that's really only useful for FF cameras.


ballough sunset by jbredrebel, on Flickr