Lens Advice

[kejohnson]

Hi,
I have a Canon T1i with the stock 18-55 mm lens. One of my favorite things is taking landscape shots and I've read a little about wide-angle lenses for this. Can someone recommend specs for a lens that might be better than what I have? Or, if you could point me to some decent info about choosing a lens, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,
Keith

[ceremus]

Are you looking for a better standard zoom to replace your kit lens or a zoom from wide to ultrawide? The selection of standard zoom lenses is pretty crowded, as for ultra-wide zooms the Canon 10-22mm is nice. There are also a few 3rd party ultra-wide EF-S lenses that may be worth considering for that task.

[kejohnson]

Well, I think I'm looking for something that lets me take in more of what I can see. I think an wide (ultra wide?) may be what I'm looking for.

[Doug Pardee]

Originally Posted by kejohnson

I have a Canon T1i with the stock 18-55 mm lens. One of my favorite things is taking landscape shots and I've read a little about wide-angle lenses for this.

Just curious... what are you looking for? The 18-55 is a wide-angle from the 18mm end to about 30mm. For most photography, the 18mm end should be plenty wide enough.

If you're "trying to fit more into the frame," maybe you shouldn't. With a wide-angle, everything's going to "get smaller", and turning mountains into hills and lakes into ponds usually doesn't result in a very impressive image. The main place where a wide-angle comes into play with landscapes is when there's interesting terrain (or objects or people or whatever) from the near-field stretching out into the distance that you want to capture.

In most cases, though, 18mm should be plenty. I'm mainly a travel/vacation photographer, and I've never longed for anything wider than my 17-85 gives me.

But if you do want wider: the usual choice for a super-wide-angle lens for the Canon APS-C cameras is the Canon EF-S 10-22.

[kejohnson]

Thanks for the info, Doug. I'm still learning and, mostly, I've been satisfied with the 18-55. There have just been some times that I thought I might need something a little wider. However, I could be completely wrong about what I'm looking for. Mostly, I'm just shopping for myself during the Christmas sales and thought I'd look for some quick opinions. :-) I may go for a 75-300 instead since I never seem to be able to zoom in enough when trying to get some distant wildlife.

Thanks again.

[RichardTaylor]

You may find this tute of interest - for the wide angle - and there are lots of choices available in the 10/12-22/24 range.

Lenses #4 - Wide angle.


For teles this may be of help - Especiallly the field of view..

Lenses #5 - Telephoto

Are you wanting to shoot urban wildlife (that can be used to people) or real wildlife in the wild?
If it is in the wild you may find 300mm is too short.

[kejohnson]

Richard,
Thanks for the links!

As for the wildlife, I'm sure it would be some of each. I've been hiking or and have just found that my 250 doesn't quite get me there when I see something in a distance. I'm not sure I'm expecting the 300 to get much closer but wasn't sure. I'll see if there is any good info in your links.

Keith

[Preeb]

Originally Posted by kejohnson

Well, I think I'm looking for something that lets me take in more of what I can see. I think an wide (ultra wide?) may be what I'm looking for.

I just got my EF-S 10-22 today (got it lightly used for $650 on Craig's List), so I haven't had much chance to use it yet. However, I already know that I'm going to love it. The hard part will be allowing it to share time with the 17-55 f2.8 which currently spends more time on my T1i than anything else.

[Pete512]

Doug above is right. I have the 10-22mm UWA, and you will find ordinary scenery shots are underwhelming.

To counteract the reduction of subjects, you have to use an interesting foreground very close (<1m) or show corners (a road intersection or building corner).

Another idea if you just want more scenery is to try stitching panoramas. But this is best done in manual mode (exposure & focus) on a tripod. (Not saying you can't, but the results are not ideal).

[Preeb]

Originally Posted by Doug Pardee

If you're "trying to fit more into the frame," maybe you shouldn't. With a wide-angle, everything's going to "get smaller", and turning mountains into hills and lakes into ponds usually doesn't result in a very impressive image. The main place where a wide-angle comes into play with landscapes is when there's interesting terrain (or objects or people or whatever) from the near-field stretching out into the distance that you want to capture.

In most cases, though, 18mm should be plenty. I'm mainly a travel/vacation photographer, and I've never longed for anything wider than my 17-85 gives me.

But if you do want wider: the usual choice for a super-wide-angle lens for the Canon APS-C cameras is the Canon EF-S 10-22.

While I agree that the wider the lens, the smaller the mountains become, I find your other comparison a bit odd. It's been my experience that with a wide angle lens, you can turn a pond into a lake rather than the reverse. I've taken a few such photos in the distant past (35mm with a 28mm wide angle), one of which was literally nothing but a puddle about 20 feet across next to a 4WD road in the mountains, but in the photo it looked like a 10 acre lake with the nearby peak reflected in it.

Stretching perspective is just one of the characteristics of wide and ultra wide angle photography. You have to be careful that you don't get into the rut of making everything look the same. A tiny bit of tilt in the camera can create a lot of distortion too, so you really have to be aware of that, especially with straight vertical lines. However, for indoor photos in museums and churches (like you see so many of in Europe), sometimes a lens like this is the only one which can capture the image you want in tight quarters. You just have to remember that you really have to get up close and personal with any foreground subject. Foreground becomes background in a very short distance at 10mm.