You don’t need to spend your life savings to get lenses that will deliver stunning results when it comes to landscape photography.
Spring is a time of new beginnings. All around us, the world is beginning to wake, and you’ll see everything from colorful wildflowers, greening grass, and trees that are full of life. Spring is the perfect time to get outside into the great wide open, especially during this time that we have been told to socially distance ourselves, in fact, now is the perfect time to get away from hoards of people in bustling city centers. After the break, we will take a quick look at some great performing, affordable lenses that you can take with you into the great outdoors.
The lenses that we have listed below are all seriously impressive given their prices. We were impressed with all of these affordable lens options when it came to overall image quality, color renditions, and overall build quality. All of these lenses are perfect for landscape photography, and some of them even have weather sealing, which is almost unheard of at the prices these lenses are available for. Grab one of these landscape photography options, throw it on your camera, hit the trails, and you will be blown away with the images that these lenses will be able to help you create. If you want a cheap landscape photography lens, these are the ones you need to take a closer look at.
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 Canon M: $329
Buy now Fujifilm X: $299
Buy now M4/3: $329
Buy now Sony E: $319
Rokinon 14mm F2.8 AF
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
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
- A few inconsistencies with the focus
Buy now Canon EF: $599
Buy now Sony E: $599
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 EF: $375
Buy now Nikon F: $375
Buy now Pentax K: $375
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 Canon M: $399
Buy now M4/3: $398.99
Buy now Sony E: $364
Pro Tip: As you might imagine, some of the lenses here do not feature weather sealing, and honestly, at the price points, this is to be expected. However, it doesn’t mean that you can’t go an play outside when the heavens open up. Make sure you pack some weatherproof camera and lens covers in your camera bag, and then when you need protection, simply put one on your gear, and you can shoot no matter what the weather is doing.
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
Buy now: $399
Tamron 20mm F2.8 Di III OSD
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Well built
- Affordable
- Nice colors
- Tamron is embracing Mirrorless with a small and lightweight offering.
- Weather sealed very well; it survived a few hours in the rain.
- Autofocuses quickly
- Priced at only $349
Cons
- This is one of the most heavily distorted lenses we’ve tested in a while. You can use that to your advantage, or you can correct it in post
Buy now: $349
Canon RF 35mm F1.8 USM IS
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Small
- Lightweight
- Fairly fast to focus
- It’s a lens designed to always be on your camera
- Image stabilization (very much needed in the system)
- Gorgeous bokeh
- Sharp enough for most uses
Cons
- We would have gladly paid more money weather sealing
Buy now: $499
Olympus 12-45mm f4 PRO
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Very small
- Well built
- Lightweight
- You pretty much never need to stop it down
Cons
- Not sure why it’s this pricey
Pro Tip: There’s a lot more to landscape photography than you might think. Just because a place looks pretty, it doesn’t mean it will make a good image. You need to think about compositions, foreground elements, background elements, and so much more. Fortunately, there are great guides out there that can help you hone your landscape photography skills. Grab this course, learn from it, and then you’ll be creating impressive landscape images in no time.
Tokina 16-28mm F2.8 OPERA
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Great image quality
- Feels nice in the hands
- In most situations, it’s got fast autofocus
- It’s dirt cheap for a constant aperture zoom lens
Cons
- We really wish it was weather sealed
- It feels like Tokina was holding back slightly
- Sometimes there are autofocus problems with the Tokina 16-28mm f2.8 OPERA and the Canon EOS R using Canon’s adapter
Buy now Canon EF: $629
Buy now Nikon F: $629
Tamron 17-28mm F2.8 Di III RXD
Here are the pros and cons from our full review:
Pros
- Weather sealed
- Sharp image quality
- Fast autofocus – nearly on the same level as Sony’s
- Compact
- Lightweight
- Overall pretty useful
Cons
- Nothing really
Buy now: $849