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Just about any lens, depends on what and how you want to photograph the landscape. Detail and narrow perspective or wide open and billowing clouds, mountains or flat deserts, bold shapes or busy bush and grass, etc?

Edited by jaapv
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I am an avid Landscape Photographer and do a lot of HDR work. What are folks opinions as to the best M lens for Landscape photography?

 

 

Well, that depends on what I try to capture.

I am using lenses from 14 - 560 mm on various size sensor cameras, FF, APS-C, and MFT.

Some of my favorite lenses are Leitz Tele-Elmar 135/4, Leica Summilux-M ASPH 50/1.4, and Leica WATE 16-18-21/4.

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A weak lens in corners and edges is not the best for landscapes so if you intend to use a 35mm lens for instance, you'd better choose a Biogon 35/2.8 than a Summarit 35/2.5 or a Summicron 35/2 asph than a Biogon 35/2 from this viewpoint. Same for 50mm lenses where the Summarit 50/2.5 is better there than the Summicron 50/2. Now you will hardly see significant differences at f/4 and on actually and personal preferences play an essential role needless to say. To take an example, my favorite 50 for landscapes is the Elmar-M 50/2.8 even if i do know that my Summilux 50/1.4 asph is a better performer.

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Since you are not very specific about what sort of landscape work you do, let me assume something standard like large coverage and field of depth. The first assumption requires high quality rendition edge to edge; the second, apertures f/22 and smaller.

 

M lenses, particularly the wide-angle ones, usually stop down to f/16 and that aperture is not their premium performance. Well, they are not medium format lenses, right?

 

If I had to choose an M lens for standard landscape shooting, I would go for the 28mm f/2 ASPH but be ready to do some cropping at f/16. I, myself, use the 21mm f/2.8 ASPH and crop, sometimes all the way to an effective 28mm field.

 

Paul

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Guest Marc G.

Landscape photography is one of my main targets of photography. Reducing this to 1-2 focal lengths is, mildly put, stupid. I currently use 28-90mm but you could also use 12-135mm. Ultra wides for getting up close and when you absolutely need to get all it for the effect. On the other hand you often need to compress the view, where a short tele shines.

 

My most used focal length is 50 for landscape, as it is for everything. I suggest starting with your favorite focal length.

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It depends. If you go ultra-wide you may end up with lots of boring foreground. But if you are surrounded by mountains ultra-wide may be just what you need. A longer lens will isolate specific feature of the landscape. 24 and 35 are idea for travel and the 50 is surprisingly versatile.

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Much depends on the landscape itself. I really enjoy photographing the classic landscapes of the American West but I find that I need longer focal length lenses to capture these successfully than would be the case for the more compact landscapes of western Europe. I suppose a modern solution to this problem would be to use an M9 in Europe and an M8 in America; that way you only need one set of lenses.:)

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I am an avid Landscape Photographer and do a lot of HDR work. What are folks opinions as to the best M lens for Landscape photography?

Why do you ask the question and why is it loaded as to the best M lens? Do you assume that the M is the best landscape camera or do you assume we believe the M is the best landscape camera?

 

I am mostly a landscape photographer. My lenses run from a 21mm (sometime used to stitch a pano) to a 300 on a Canon 7D (i.e. 480mm equivalent).

 

In conclusion: The best lens is the one you need to take the picture in question.

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