Wide Angle Lens

So I have my camera now, I'm learning the features trying to take better shots. I'm going to the SW in Sept and was wanting to take some sweet pics of the national parks. What type of Lens should I use? I've read that wide angle is the best for landscape pics. Are there anyone recommends for a Canon?

 

Ive used a fisheye lense before and it was cool but I wouldnt use it for "serious" photography. I have a canon that has a panoramic setting that lets me connect several pictures together.

they have been resized kinda small but you get the idea. I think it was called photo "switch" or "stitch" not for sure but it was on a canon camera

 

I have a 12-24mm Wide angle that I use and it works great. The bad thing about it ...It cost $1000

 

I've got a Sigma 10-20mm for Canon. I'm happy with it, but by no means a professional. In my opinion, you're better off stitching photos together to make a pano of a landscape unless you simply can't get back far enough to capture what you want/need.

Personally, I'd stay away from a fisheye. But then, there's a million opinions on this, and you get what you pay for with all (ok, nearly all) lenses.

www.dpreview.com

 

$1000 is a bit out of my budget. Canon has Wide Angle in the $300-$600 range I was looking at.

 

the two that I posted were just stitched together.

 

Those look pretty cool actually. Ill learn more about my camera in the next few weeks and learn what the capabilities are.

 

when I got my camera I would take my owners manual with me to work to read through when I wasnt busy. It helped learn all the functions. practice at home so when you get to where your going you wont have to fumble around with the settings to get cool shots.

 

sigma 10-20 is a pretty good lens and for around $500 its not to expensive. One of the better wide angles your going to find without spending big $$$

 

go to flickriver if you have a flickr account. you can always start one. flickriver allows you to look at pictures taken with different lenses. Its pretty awesome. Let me see if I can link it here. Ok check out this link: http://flickriver.com/lenses/canon/
This is for the Canon lenses but they have other manufacturers on there. Let me know what you think. If you had the money, the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens is a pretty sick lens. But in your price range you could look at this one: http://www.adorama.com/CA2428AFU.html ....Like I said you can check out the work on a lot of these lenses on the first link. Good Luck. I'm pretty excited as I have the 18-135mm lens coming in tomorrow!

 

those do look pretty good. you just use the camera software to stitch 'em? i like autopano and it's really not that expensive. for you and OP, you can check out some of my panos here, but some of them are huge so beware... http://tinyurl.com/28u2og8

 

Canon's got a relatively cheap 50mm f1.8 for a $100. Not a bad lens to add to your collection.

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-50mm-1-...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1281478753&sr=8-1

 

The Canon 10-22 is a pretty good lens and if the body you want to put it on does support it, I'd suggest that over many other things. Good value for the money.

I have an IR converted Rebel that I use the 10-22 on almost exclusively.

If you are shooting landscapes, you can always make panos and use almost any lens to get the WA effect.

Here's an example of that.


This was shot with an SD780 and is three or four frames stitched together.

Here is a shot taken with the 10-22:

 

yea my canon had a setting that would show two frames. I would take one picture and it would show up in the first frame and show my next shot in the next frame. I could essentially take a 360 degree photo just by lining up my shot with the last one i took in the side by side view

 

Don't see your examples...forgot to attach?

What Canon model was this?

 

They are there and the gallery permissions are open enough to read so there shouldn't be problems (they are links, not attachments).

 

There is a big difference between a panoramic shot, and a wide angle shot, you have to decide what it is that you are after. And Wide angle has been used by a lot of professionals... Nikon and Canon don't make "Panoramic" lenses they have Wide Angle (aka "Fisheye") lenses

 

Yea I see them now...for some reason it wasn't working for me when I was looking at it the first time.

 

Technically, you can make a panorama with any lens. You need to know and rotate the camera around that lenses nodal point for the near focus stuff to line up correctly. For panos that will be shot at near infinity, the nodal point does not matter as much.

With regard to WA, a fisheye is at the extreme end. If you spend the dough, you can get something like the Canon 14mm which doesn't have near the same level of distortion as say the Canon 15mm.

I think the biggest thing you want to remember with WA and Ultra Wide Angle is that they are not suited for making landscape shots--at least not sweeping all-encompassing vistas. If you do that, all you'll have is a bunch of tiny stuff in the picture. But if you get all up close and personal, you'll get some cool stuff. Like this:


This was shot with a Canon 15mm fisheye. I was a few inches away from the poppies.

HTH

 

So basically what you're saying is that a dedicated WA lens (fisheye) is pretty much "gimmicky"? Not saying that it's a cheap or crappy lens, but that its use is rather limited...kind of like a macro lens?