Landscape photography is one of those great niches of photography where you can just grab your gear and go–no need to line up a client or model, just drive out to your nearest wilderness area and you are golden. This often makes landscape photography a popular niche for hobbyists and amateur landscape photographers, who by extension are usually looking for budget lenses to built out their kit.
One nice benefit to landscape photography is that your subjects are not moving, so autofocus is a luxury that you can live without, meaning access to inexpensive manual focus prime lenses is something that makes a lot of sense to look into. Today we wanted to focus on some of our picks for the best budget landscape photography lenses, and we have broken the list up into two parts, DSLR Lenses and Mirrorless lenses. Let’s jump into it.
Budget DSLR Lenses
Featured DSLR Landscape Lens: Tokina AT-X 24-70mm f2.8 FX
Finding cheap and fast wide angle lenses for full frame DSLR’s isn’t easy (though it is way easier than in Mirrorless systems), however Tokina’s 24-70mm is a great option for landscape photographers. In our review of the Tokina 24-70mm F2.8 we said:
“The Tokina 24-70mm f2.8 is a really fantastic lens if you’re a professional that doesn’t need weather sealing or even if you’re a high end hobbyist/semi-pro. There is lots of love about it. The image quality it can deliver is something that other manufacturers should be looking at closely as I usually tend to be much more critical of zoom lenses since so much can possibly go wrong with their design. But this one: this one is marvelous.“
Want one? [amazon_textlink asin=’B00XH75EFE’ text=’Pick up the Tokina AT-X 24-70mm f2.8 Pro FX over on Amazon’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’6eb7a240-003e-11e7-b7c6-eda0a1b19953′].
Pro tip: Graduated ND filters are one of a photographer’s best friend. Use them to balance a landscape and a sky.
Other great budget DSLR landscape options
- [amazon_textlink asin=’B014ULAF0O’ text=’Tamron 35mm F1.8′ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’a408d09c-003f-11e7-b982-7b5a0f00dc17′] (Our Review)
- [amazon_textlink asin=’B00NJ9K52W’ text=’Sigma 18-300mm f3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’d2aa8729-003f-11e7-9d96-b76c16d21e48′] (Our Reivew)
- [amazon_textlink asin=’B00DEI38PY’ text=’Samyang 16mm F/2′ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’0fcf7e23-0041-11e7-89ae-4d62f19a7015′] (Our Review)
Budget Mirrorless Lenses
Featured Mirrorless Landscape Lens: Sony 28mm F2
28mm lenses are great for landscape photographers because they have relatively little distortion (when compared to wider 24mm or 14/16/18mm lenses) while still being wide enough for epic landscapes. In our review of the Sony FE 28mm F2 we said:
“We were quite pleased with how sharp the Sony 28mm f2 lens fairs. This has to be one of Sony’s sharper lenses and the company’s primes are what impress us the most. It’s about on par with the 35mm f2.8 if not a tad better, but both the 55mm f1.8 and 35mm f1.4 are sharper. This lens also seems sharper than the Zeiss 35mm f2, though not at all sharper than the Zeiss 50mm f2 Loxia lens.“
Other great budget mirrorless landscape options
- [amazon_textlink asin=’B01KNXOCO8′ text=’Fujifilm 23mm F2′ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’2d0bf207-003a-11e7-bffa-19a62855cfa8′] (Read our Review)
- [amazon_textlink asin=’B00JD4TA9G’ text=’Rokinon 12mm F2′ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’73c84f6e-003a-11e7-ab4d-f9ba26d7cafc’]
- [amazon_textlink asin=’B01LWRXIIS’ text=’Rokinon 20mm F1.8′ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’b3288667-003a-11e7-9ec4-6b27e47d8a37′] (Review coming soon)
- [amazon_textlink asin=’B0028Y5GKK’ text=’Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f4.0′ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’dd432a80-0041-11e7-9164-e91b9773d645′] (Our Review)