Mirrorless Lens for Landscapes

<p>I am having a serious look at mirrorless cameras and I ask the question whether anyone has discovered a body and lens solution that gives me effective 20mm equivalent in FX, and good enough quality to use as a landscape lens.<br>

I hear that you can get a mirrorless-to-F mount adapter, but the crop factor would work against me. I currently have a 20/f4, 24/f2.8 and a 28/2.8 Nikkors. So I am spoilt for quality.<br>

Up till recently I had a D700 and F4s and these lenses were terrific on them both. I've sold the bodies and kept the lenses for the moment and I'm looking around.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance</p>

<p>If there was a 10mm prime of good quakity for M43, I'd buy one now.... but there isn't. I use the Olympus 9-18, which isn't bad but the corners are definitely a bit soft; I've seen good reports, but have no experience, of the Panasonic 7-14. There are some good reviews of both at the usual sites. </p>

<p>Sony NEX (1.5x crop) have the 16mm f/2.8, which people like to varying degrees, and a 10-18 f/4 zoom is appearing soon. According to Wikipedia there is a Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2.8/12mm, announced in September for mid 2013.</p>

<p>I also use Nikon lenses with my NEX 5n. I have a Tamron 14mm, in Nikon mount, that I use to good effect on that body for an effective 21mm FOV. Works well, sharp but manual focus only</p>

<p>The Olympus 12mm f/2.0 is supposed to exceptional but it works out at 24mm in 35mm terms.</p>

Yes, the M.Zuiko 12/2.0 looks stunning in the slrgear.com test, wide open all the way down to f/11. The Panasonic 7-14/4 is equally amazing, although it helps to stop down at 14mm. One problem is that Olympus bodies do not (yet?) have built-in lens corrections for Panasonic lenses, so you either accept it or shoot RAW. Lensrentals.com did this test of wide-angle lenses on an OM-D:

 

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/05/wide-angle-micro-43-imatest-results

 

The Fuji XF 14/2.8 is not yet out, but available for pre-order (21mm FX equivalent). I really like the X-Trans sensor! Here is what the 14/2.8 looks like on the X-E1:

 

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/42562709

<p>The Olympus E-M5 with a Panasonic 7-14mm (or for the more budget-minded, the Olympus 9-18mm) is right up your alley. Sony doesn't quite have anything yet, but if you are willing to wait, their roadmap shows a wide angle zoom coming soon. Wide angle lenses for mirrorless is right up their alley, as you don't have the mirrorbox of an SLR, so I'm surprised that Sony hasn't really pounced on the opportunity. They promise a wide angle zoom:<br>

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/02/09/Sony_NEX_lens_roadmap_CP%2B<br>

So you can expect something like their 11-18mm that they have for their SLR mount. Which brings up, you can always buy the LA-EA1 adapter and grab yourself something like the alpha 11-18mm, the Tokina 11-16mm, the Rokinon manual focus 14mm, etc. Also, from this discussion:<br>

http://www.photo.net/digital-camera-forum/00appI<br>

Zeiss promises a 12mm lens for NEX and Fuji cameras to be released in summer 2013, so you could always use the manual focus 14mm with an adapter until it comes out. Once it does, you have Zeiss goodness!</p>

I occasionally use the CV 12mm on my Leica M8 but it can be used on any body. It is a high quality lens (not Leica quality

but optically very good). On an APS-C body like Sony or Fuji it will give you an 18mm equivalent. You would want to

check how it performs at the images edges on such a body as there might be a lot of vignetting and CA. On the Leica M8

it works fine and the vignetting is not that bad - on the full frame M9 I understand there are more problems. There seem

to be plenty of blogs on the subject and it seems people find it works well (it is obviously manual focus and manual

aperture). The problem with the rangefinder wide angles is that the rear element is very close to the sensortout

unfortunately while Leica designs a special sensor to deal with this other manufacturers do not. It is a very well made lens

and optically good (for the price $900 approx)

 

He is an example blog

http://sonyalphanex.blogspot.com/2011/01/nex-with-voigtlander-12mm-ultrawide.html

 

They also do a 15mm for around $500

http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/the-voigtlander-15mm-heliar-lens-review-leica-m-mount-super-wide/

 

And a review on the Sony

http://www.photozone.de/sony-alpha-aps-c-lens-tests/544-voigtlander12f56nex?start=2

<p>While it is popular practice to use a wide angle lens for landscapes some people I read about often use longer lens so the 20mm f/4 [ 40mm AoV with M4/3 ] or the others would be suitable. Last landscape I did was shot with around a 90mm AoV becuase the narrower AoV gets rid of unnessary foreground and uninteresting sky. If in turn you want a wide view there is always stitching to provide that if done in editing where one has control over the process.<br>

I guess it depends on what sort of landscapes you are after ... selective or 'get it all in' :-)</p>

<p>JC, that's true, I've shot landscapes at about 300mm (Tamron 180mm on a D200)! If you look at this website that describes historical lenses, for example, he shows a landscape taken with such a long focal length:<br>

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/olympusom1n2/shared/zuiko/htmls/300mm.htm</p>

<p>However, Francisco, given that he has a 20mm, 24mm, and 28mm lens on two full frame cameras, I think he understands focal length well enough to know what angle of view he wants. I am sure that he enjoys using the 20mm on his cameras, and wants to just replicate this with a smaller setup.</p>

<p>Thanks so much for all your advice. I'll follow up these lenses mentioned.</p>

<p>Francisco - let me add one more to your list - the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Olympus-11-22mm-2-8-3-5-Digital-Cameras/dp/B0001M47FG?tag=battleforthew-20">Olympus 11-22 2.8-3.5 for 4/3</a>. I use it with a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DMW-MA1-Lumix-Mount-Adapter/dp/B001ISKNKK?tag=battleforthew-20">MA1 adapter</a> on my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DMC-GH2-Interchangeable-Free-Angle-Black/dp/B0043VE26U?tag=battleforthew-20">Panasonic GH2</a>. Great combination for landscapes. <br>

I didn't take these, but here are some examples from this camera/lens combination: <a href="http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/38721019">http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/38721019</a><br>

(bottom two pictures): <a href="http://club.foto.ru/forum/view_post.php?p_id=7817840">http://club.foto.ru/forum/view_post.php?p_id=7817840</a><br>

Best,<br>

Bill</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Ariel S .... sometime we need a nudge or prompt out of our regular ways of thinking :-)</p>

<p>Thanks again. It gets me pointed in the right direction. I had a D700 with the lenses I mentioned, but I am tired of lugging around a large DSLR. It attracts too much attention. I got almost as much as I paid for the D700, but I think a mirrorless system is the way to go.</p>

<p>I bought a GF1 on the strength of reviews, to replace 35mm. Prior experience with an upmarket Panasonic p&s with 12 MP had convinced me I was likely to meet and usually beat the IQ I had been used to with Maxxum lenses.<br>

Your question is about lenses so here's the answer: using a combination of 7-14, 14-45 and 45-200 Panasonic lenses I have better IQ, shooting RAW, than I got from 35mm. The 7-14 is a tad slow but it is a fantastic lens. You could say the same about the kit lens but again, it is a wonderful lens. No complaints about the 45-200 either. For landscape work I stop them down anyway.<br>

I sell prints from my Canon 9000, so I print full frame up to 12x16. If I make a "panoramic" crop to print 12x26 (printer limit) I'm using ~8 MP and I think that's stretching things just a bit, except for the saving factor known as viewing distance. The point is however, that the three lenses, shooting RAW with 12MP are giving me results that I am very happy with.</p>