The weather can change in an instant so make sure your landscape photography lenses are weather sealed.
Any photographer who has been practicing landscape photography for a while will likely have many stories about being caught out in ‘the storm of the century’. I know I have my tales. The weather can can change in an instant. A seemingly gorgeous sunny day, can soon become dark with rain cloud filled skies. Can your current lenses handle being caught in an unexpected rain shower? The lenses we will take a look at today are made for just these types of situations. They are weather sealed to the nines, and they will do just fine in a downpour.
Landscape photography is an incredibly rewarding genre. Capturing the beauty of the world around you can fill you with a sense of joy and wonder, but you have to make sure you are ready to deal with the elements. The going can get rough out in the field. Along with weather sealed cameras, and weather proof camera bags, it is essential that you have a solid weather sealed lens for your landscape photography. All of these lenses excel when it comes to image quality, and they are as tough as nail. Check out these nine weather sealed lenses that will help you produce show stopping landscape photography no matter what the weather is doing.
Rokinon 14mm F2.8 AF
Pros
- Sharp output
- Accurate autofocus in most situations
- The clear, crisp color that we’ve come to expect from Rokinon
- Bokeh when needed
- Weather sealing
Cons
- I still really am wondering why Rokinon chose to make this lens for DSLRs.
- A few inconsistencies with the focus
Check out our full review
Buy now Canon ($698): Amazon
Buy now Nikon ($699): Amazon
Buy now Sony ($699): Amazon
IRIX 15mm F2.4 FireFly
Pros
- Absolutely fantastic image quality
- Not too contrasty
- Not too saturated
- Super sharp
- Zone focusing scale and a touch-up zone focusing scale
- Weather sealing
- Smoothing focusing action
- Click at the infinity spot
- Illumination with a blacklight in the dark
- Autofocus confirmation and EXIF registration in the contacts
- These lenses are pretty damned affordable.
Cons
- Maybe the text on the lens should be glow in the dark and not blacklight illuminated
Check out our full review
Buy now Canon ($375): Amazon
Buy now Nikon ($375): Amazon
Pro Tip: One thing is for sure when it comes to landscape photography; your gear is going to get dirty. Whether it be specs of dust or dirt, greasy finger prints, or water spots, your lens at some point will have these on it and you’re going to need to clean the glass. Keep an affordable lens cleaning kit with you at all times so that you can deal with the grime on location rather than in post. It will save you a ton of time.
Canon 16-35mm f2.8 L III USM
Pros
- Great image quality
- Weather sealing
- Big, beefy body that feels nice in the hand
- Fast autofocus
- Pretty versatile range if you’re the type of shooter that aims more for the 35mm end of things.
Cons
- Expensive
- Big and heavy
- DSLRs are kind of shifting out of evolution these days
Check out our full review
Buy now ($1,899): Amazon
Pentax 15-30mm f2.8 ED SDM WR
Pros
- Fantastic colors
- Great image quality overall
- Great weather sealing
- Feels great in the hand
- Fairly affordable price point
- When connected to the camera, it can still fit into most messenger style camera bags
- Fast focusing, but it’s also a wide angle lens so you have to expect that
Cons
- Shows a bit more distortion than we’re used to seeing with wide angle zooms these days (Canon and Sony especially!)
- Focusing and zoom ring are a bit too small for my liking
Check out our full review
Buy now ($1,296.95): Amazon
Pro Tip: You may have a weather sealed lens, but that doesn’t mean you have a weather sealed camera. If you don’t have a weather sealed camera don’t worry. Keep some of these very affordable weather proof camera and lens covers with you and then if the skies open up on you, or if you think they will, you can be proactive by placing the cover over your gear. You can then keep on shooting while everyone else is packing up and missing out on dramatic shots.
Fujifilm 8-16mm f2.8 R LM WR (X Mount)
Pros
- Solid image quality
- Fast autofocus, which is expected
- Lets you hand hold it to very low shutter speeds due to the reciprocal rule of shutter speeds
- Weather sealed
Cons
- This lens is pretty darned expensive at just under $2,000. I’m not quite sure I’m able to justify the price
Check out our full review
Buy now ($1,661.95): Amazon
Fujifilm GF 23mm F4 R WR (GF Mount)
Pros
- Nice image quality
- It’s a super wide angle lens without the distortion of one.
- Yes, it can still deliver bokeh
- Focuses really close
- A very documentary feel to the images that is fantastic
Cons
- The Fujifilm GF system is a bit slow for real run and gun documentary work. But you can still get it done to a certain point
Check out our full review
Buy now ($2,599): Amazon
Pro Tip: If you plan on printing, and selling your landscape photography it is absolutely vital that you get your colors right before doing anything else. Calibration tools like the Spyder5 from Datacolor help calibrate your monitors so that the colors you see on your screen are true. When you print your images you know that the colors will be identical to what you saw on your monitor. Take some of the guess work out of editing your landscape photos and get things right first time.
Olympus 7-14mm f2.8 PRO (Micro Four Thirds)
Pros
- Very sharp
- Relatively low distortion
- Small form factor that will make this lens almost permanently attached to your camera.
- f2.8 is awesome for light gathering abilities.
- Fast focusing
- Weather sealing
- Super wide landscapes and buildings at one end while street photography ready at the other end
Cons
- Bulbous front element is easily affected by the rain or any other sort of precipitation that you take this lens and camera out into
Check out our full review
Buy now ($1,199): Amazon
Sigma 16mm f1.4 DC DN Contemporary (Sony E Mount)
Pros
- Fast aperture
- Weather sealing to a point
- Fast autofocus performance for the most part
- Nice bokeh
- Sharp, surprisingly sharp
Cons
- To be honest, nothing
Check out our full review
Buy now ($395): Amazon
Sony 24mm F1.4 G Master (Sony FE Mount)
Pros
- Compact and lightweight
- Weather sealed
- Superb image quality
- Outstanding edge to edge sharpness, even when shooting wide open
- Dreamy, circular bokeh
- Impressive minimal focus distance of 0.79 feet (0.24 meters)
Cons
- Slight color fringing (easily mitigated in post processing)
Check out our full review
Buy now ($1,.398): Amazon