Which Canon lenses combination to get for landscape photography?

Question

The story never gets old, I was given a Canon 500D camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 and later a Tamron AF 28-300mm F3.5-6.3 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF) Macro Canon. As they say "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" be happy you got it. This is a good start-up. At least I have fun and enjoy to use it. However, slowly I'm seeing some of the limitations - "not wide enough, soft on the end, slow on focus" and I'm looking in long term investment in lenses that will be "beneficial" to my landscape photography. I came up with two sets of "combos" of lenses that I think would complement each other for given set:

• Set one

  1. Canon EF 17-40 mm f/4.0 L USM
  2. Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 L IS USM

• Set two

  1. Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM
  2. Canon EF 70-200mm F/2.8 L IS II USM

Personally I'm inclined towards second set that has wider aperture, they do closer mirror my current set despite pricier tag attached to them. So feel free to bite me if you think I'm going in wrong direction

PS: No need to point out that with either buy I will lose some 100/200 - 300mm focal length, but I'm covered at that end as I got myself Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM that I use for wildlife.

Answer

I'm going to focus on the focal length range here, not the IQ, aperture, or AF-speed aspects, or anything else for that matter.

Set one gives you 17-105, while set two gives you 24-200. Those are very different, both on the wide end (41%) and on the long end (48%). I'd suggest reading What software can show my most frequently used focal length? to see which might be better for you.

Two more suggestions for landscape photography:

• Wider is better. In which case you probably want to look into an ultrawide lens, like the Tamron 10-24.

• If you're printing big, taking many pictures with a longer lens then combining them when you post-process your photos may be your best bet (see Which tools are good for creating panoramas/stitching multiple photos?).

I'd also like to point out that you don't necessarily need to have a "set" of lenses that complement each other. For example, I have a big gap in my lenses, from 55-100mm, because I rarely take pictures in those focal lengths. Also, since you already have 18-400mm covered, you might get more value by looking at lenses outside that range, so that your new lenses allow you to take pictures that you can't take now.

Some general advice which may or may not be applicable to you: I think it's best to take a lot of photos (at least 1,000). After you do that, if you analyze your favorite photos you'll have a very good idea of how your equipment is limiting you and you'll be better able to zero in on which lenses will most help you. Once you've done that, you will be the best judge of what lenses are best for you.

Finally, to try to actually answer your question: I wouldn't take either of those sets. The wider one isn't wide enough (for the pictures that I like to take), and the longer one isn't long enough (for the pictures that I like to take). I'd pick up that 10-24, along with the prime or zoom lens which best fits your own requirements for focal length range, IQ, maximum aperture, and price range.

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