Under $600: Eight Great Wide Lenses For Landscape Photography

Quality wide angle lenses for landscape photography have never been more affordable.

If you want to be able to get out with your camera and have a quality, affordable, wide angle lens attached so that you can partake in landscape photography, this roundup is for you. Here we take a look at eight, bang for your buck, wide angle lenses capable of producing gorgeous images with amazing color rendering. While they may be cheap, they shoot like lenses that should cost two or three times as much as they do. All eight of these wide angle lenses will impress when it comes to image quality, color rendition, overall build quality, and their ease of use. The fact that most of these lenses are below $600 will impress your wallet too. If you want a lens that will help you produce ultra sharp, detail-rich, landscape images, check out the list below.

Rokinon 12mm F2

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

• Great colors
• Small build
• Lightweight
• Nice aperture clicks
• Sharp

Cons

• There are lenses with better bokeh for sure

Buy now Fujifilm ($295.68): Amazon

Buy now Canon M ($297.99): Amazon

Buy now M4/3 ($299): Amazon

Buy now Sony E ($349): Amazon

 

Rokinon 14mm F2.8

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

• Very affordable
• Easy to use focus and aperture rings
• Amazingly sharp wide open at f2.8
• Top notch image quality
• Colors rendered are typical Rokinon

Cons

• Cheap build quality
• Metering with this lens is not always the most accurate
• Cannot be used with filters

Buy now Canon ($329): Amazon

Buy now Pentax ($249): Amazon

Buy now Sony A ($269): Amazon

Buy now M4/3 ($328.09): Amazon

Buy now Fujifilm ($229): Amazon

 

Pro Tip: When it comes to landscape photography you can have the best camera and the best lens in the world, but your images won’t hold a candle to others unless you use a quality, sturdy tripod as well. Landscape photography is all about the details, and it is imperative that you compose your shot properly and have perfectly level horizons. The only way to really achieve this is by using a tripod. You can get high-quality tripods with ball heads these days for very little outlay (like this one). Add a tripod into your landscape photography workflow and you will see an improvement in your images almost instantly.

 

Fujifilm 16mm F2.8 R WR

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

• Small
• Lightweight
• Weather sealed
• Fun to use
• Affordable
• Good for documentary work and travel
• Incredibly fast autofocus

Cons

• Not sure why there isn’t an effective manual focus distance scale for hyperfocal length shooting
• It’s a wide angle lens with a relatively slow aperture for an APS-C camera system
• You can get the 16mm f1.4 on eBay new or used for good prices. And you also get two stops more of light and weather sealing in addition to snappy autofocus

Buy now ($399.99): Amazon

 

Sigma 16mm F1.4 DC DN Contemporary

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

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

Buy now Sony E ($389.95): Amazon

 

Pro Tip:  Landscape images can really make some jaws drop, especially when your image is good enough to help transport the view to the location. But in order to do that you need to know how to edit images correctly. Being able to correctly adjust colors, apply masks, and bring out the detail in your shots can be difficult if you don’t know where to start. This guide will show you how to capture and edit landscape images so that they look their very best.

 

IRIX 15mm F2.4 FireFly

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

• Weather sealing
• Fairly lightweight
• Accurate focusing depth of field markers
• Sharp optics
• Innovative features like the ability to lock the focus with a separate ring

Cons

• Focusing communication with a Sony FE camera via a Metabones adapter wasn’t the absolute best

Buy now Canon ($375): Amazon

Buy now Nikon ($375): Amazon

Buy now Pentax ($400): Amazon

 

Viltrox PFU RBMH 20mm F1.8 ASPH (Sony FE)

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

• affordably priced
• solid metal construction with smooth tactile feedback
• beautifully creamy bokeh
• excellent image quality with minimal distortions
• supports filters when using the dedicated lens hood

Cons

• lacks weather sealing

Buy now ($486): Amazon

 

Pro Tip: As mentioned above, landscape photography is all about details. In order for your images to shine you need to make sure your lenses are kept in tip-top shape. The last thing you want to do after a long day of hiking and shooting is remove dirt and dust spots from your images. Keep a basic lens cleaning kit in your camera bag at all times, and check the front element before you capture your image.

 

Olympus M.Zuiko 9-18mm F4-5.6 (Micro Four Thirds)

 

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

• Small and lightweight
• Very versatile focal length range

Cons

• Noticeable barrel distortion
• Corner performance at the wide end less than stellar

Buy now ($599): Amazon

 

Tamron 17-35mm F2.8-4 Di OSD

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

• Weather sealing
• Fast autofocus
• Nice bokeh
• Small
• Lightweight
• Very affordable

Cons

• We’re not sure that we can quite understand the need for a variable aperture, wide angle zoom when in reality the depth of field changes will only give you the same amount of bokeh

Buy now ($599): Amazon