For many of us, there’s nothing like going out for a hike or meditation around landscape photography. If you’re an introvert, it’s a wonderful way to be able to get out into nature and realize a creative vision you have for a scene. Sometimes you may need a nice, slow, shutter speed. At other times, you need unique colors to inspire you just because the color green is that perfect shade. No matter, the best lenses for landscapes will always be reliable, lightweight, capable, weather resistant, and versatile. We’ve done the most real-world reviews of any photography publication around. So here’s what we think are the best lenses for landscapes that photographers are going to adore.
This blog post is presented in partnership with LUMIX.
Table of Contents
How We Test and Choose The Best Lenses for Landscapes
- The Phoblographer’s various product round-up features are done in-house. Our philosophy is simple: you wouldn’t get a Wagyu beef steak review from a lifelong vegetarian. And you wouldn’t get photography advice from someone who doesn’t touch the product. We only recommend gear we’ve fully reviewed in these roundups.
- If you’re wondering why your favorite product didn’t make the cut, there’s a chance it’s on another list. If we haven’t reviewed it, we won’t recommend it. This method keeps our lists packed with industry-leading knowledge. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
- When we test lenses, we’ve got various things in mind. First off, we consider who might want to buy the lens and what they might do with it. With that in mind, we try to tackle at least three genres of photography with that lens in a variety of situations. If the lens has weather resistance, then we’ll test it accordingly with a weather-resistant camera. We also test the autofocus of the lens in continuous mode, single mode, with exposure preview effects, without those effects, and then with all the major image quality parameters. These days, no one really makes a bad lens — but some are far better than others.
- In this specific roundup, we’re basing our findings on the reviews that we’ve done. We’re choosing a favorite, but we’re also giving photographers a bunch of others that they might like, depending on how they shoot.
Our Choice Amongst the Best Lenses for Landscapes: LUMIX 24mm f1.8
Well, it’s really hard to beat a solid 24mm lens. And of so many on the market, the one made by LUMIX has to hands-down be one of the best out there. It boasts weather resistance, sharp image quality, stunning colors that don’t really dampen when you stop it down, and a fast f1.8 aperture. But most importantly, it’s small and lightweight — which means that when you’re hiking, you’ll actually want to bring it with you.
Other things to know, it’s:
- Sharp
- Beautiful colors
- Images require minimal editing when using film simulations
- Compact and lightweight
- Weather-resistant
- Versatile focal length
Tech Specs
These are the official tech specs from Lensrentals.
Angle of View | 84° |
Aperture Blades | 9, Rounded |
Aspherical Elements | 3 |
Autofocus | Autofocus |
Brand | Panasonic |
Diameter | 2.9″ |
Extra Low-Dispersion Elements | 3 |
Filter Size | 67.0mm |
Focal Length | 24.0-24.0 |
Format | Full-Frame |
Groups/Elements | 11/12 |
Hood Included | Yes |
Image Stabilization | No |
Item Type | Lens |
Length | 2.9″ |
Max Aperture | 1.8 |
Maximum Magnification | 0.15x |
Mfr. Model Number | S-S24 |
Minimum Aperture | 16.0 |
Minimum Focusing Distance | 0.8’ |
Mount | L Mount |
Ultra Extra-Low Dispersion Elements | 1 |
Weight | 0.7 lb. |
In our review, we state:
The LUMIX S 24mm f1.8 lens is lightweight and compact. Its versatile 24mm focal length is great for landscapes, cityscapes, street photography, and architecture. The lens produces beautiful neutral tones with plenty of sharpness and bokeh when you want it. Distortion is minimal and easily corrected. It doesn’t have the fastest lowlight AF performance, but it’s fast enough. Plus, its weather-resistant design allows you to shoot with it almost anywhere.
3 Others You Might Think Are the Best Lenses for Landscapes
The best lenses for landscapes need to be very versatile. They also don’t necessarily need to have the fastest apertures because you’re stopping the lenses down anyway. Now, these lenses are all incredible. In fact, it’s hard to see a bad lens on the market today. And we’re sure that for many other photographers out there, one of these might be the best one.
LUMIX 35mm f1.8
In our review, we state:
The only two controls are for manually focusing — the AF/MF switch and the focus ring. The Panasonic S5 menu allows you to customize the speed of the control ring, as well as how far the ring turns to move through the range of possible focal distances. In non-linear mode, the ring turns slowly. That, coupled with focus peaking on the S5, made it easy to manually focus with excellent accuracy. The linear mode focuses much faster, but that makes it more difficult to get perfect focus.
LUMIX 16-35mm f4
In our review, we said:
I really like the colors from the Panasonic 16-35mm f4 PRO. I still think Panasonic has lenses with even better tint though. However, for small documentary-style setups, cityscapes, or landscapes, you’ll be happy. As stated earlier, we really like the look of the images with L Monochrome D enabled.
24-105mm f4 LUMIX S
In our review, we state:
The autofocus is snappy, and the meticulous placement of the switches is a great feature worth pointing out. There wasn’t a single moment where I accidentally switched the OIS off or put the lens into manual focus mode. This lens requires you to act with intent, which translates into a photographer being able to just focus on what they’re doing.
How to Use This Guide to the Best Lenses for Landscapes
Here’s what you should know about using this guide to the best lenses for landscapes:
- This guide contains products we’ve reviewed. Lucky for you folks, we’ve reviewed the vast majority of LUMIX lenses and modern lenses in general. Our Ethical Practices don’t allow us to feature products we haven’t fully reviewed. So when we say these are the best wide-angle lenses with great color for LUMIX, we mean it.
- This guide is sponsored by LUMIX, who trusts us and understands that we have a set of ethics when it comes to reviewing products. All the product images and sample images in this roundup were shot by Phoblographer staff. There are also links to our full reviews.
- These are the best lenses for landscapes. We’re emphasizing mostly lenses which are lightweight, have great focusing, and pair well with the Real Time LUT feature that LUMIX cameras have.
- Of course, we’re choosing lenses that have versatility. Sure, you can use telephoto lenses for landscapes too. But we believe from our testing that these are the best lenses for landscapes.
- LUMIX is otherwise known in the market as Panasonic.
- This specific list of the best lenses for landscapes is catering specifically to the full-frame LUMIX crowd. So that’s why there aren’t any Micro Four Thirds offerings here.
- Generally speaking, LUMIX lenses work better on LUMIX bodies than they do with others within the L-Mount Alliance. Part of this has to do with the motors being used. They’ll work perfectly fine on Leica and Sigma L-mount camera bodies too.
- We’ve chosen lenses with weather-resistance. Weather resistance has more use than just shooting in the rain. Think of it as “weathering away” instead of “talking about the weather.” It helps prevent dust from getting into your lens and camera. That means you don’t need to retouch sensor dust. If it helps any more, all LUMIX S lenses have weather resistance as of the publishing of this article.
- All the product images and sample photos in these roundups are shot by our staff. In fact, we don’t talk about products at length in roundups like this unless we’ve done full reviews of them. But you can surely know that we’ve done all the research ourselves.
Picking the Right One For You
If you’re still a bit confused as to the right lens for you, here are some questions to ask yourself
- What’s your budget?
- How will you use the product?
- What lighting situations are you in, and how will that affect what you’re doing? Our reviews hyperlinked in this article can help with that.
- Are you traveling a lot with it?
- Will you be using it in a situation that’s a bit rougher?
- Who else uses this product? How are they using it?
- What’s so appealing about this product that I can’t get from what I have already or something else?
- When will I really have time to use this product?
- Where will I bring this product?
- How will this product help bring me joy and joy in my photography?