Wide angle lens

[dealrocker]

A friend of mine owns a Leica M8.2 and a 35mm Summarit. He is interested in landscape photography and need something wider for his next lens. After going through some online reviews, he narrowed down to 18mm Super Elmar, the 21mm Summilux and 24mm Summilux. Need your advice to choose the best one that fulfill his requirements?


Thanks in advance.

 

[250swb]

Well I'd have thought the obvious answer is sell the M8.2, and with that money and what he would have spent on the 21mm or 24mm Summilux he could buy an M9 and all his lenses would become 'wider angle' again. In fact I think he would have some theoretical change in his pocket to buy a 28mm lens as well.

Steve

 

[250swb]

Ok, I worked it out on the basis that 'landscape' doesn't often need a fast lens like the Summilux, here are the figures.

Sell Leica M8.2 for say £2300, what has been budgeted for in a 24mm Summilux you have £4119, total budget is £6419. Buy a Leica M9 for £4971 leaves £1448 out of the budget with which to buy a new 28mm Elmarit, a perfect landscape lens and effectively as close to the 24mm on an M8 as makes little difference, but in fact wider if you want to pick at details. With the extra change buy a spare battery and a filter.

 

[Roger Hicks]

None of them is a good landscape lens in my view; the vast majority of my best landscapes, and a good number of those by others whose pictures I admire, were taken with longer lenses, not shorter. Remember that Leitz sold the 105/6.3 as the 'mountain Elmar'.

I'd certainly second the suggestion to buy an M9 and a slower lens. The Summiluxes are incredible (I currently have both) but you are paying a lot for the speed as well as the sharpness. I've not tried the 18 Super Elmar but I do borrow my wife's 18 Zeiss. Again, super quality but not a landscape lens in my view.

Cheers,

R.

 

[D.O'K.]

"...the vast majority of my best landscapes, and a good number of those by others whose pictures I admire, were taken with longer lenses, not shorter. "

Agreed.

The wider the lens the more it pushes the landscape away, with consequent loss of visible detail.

Moreover for hilly country I find the slightly compressed perspective rendered by a lens of around 100mm (on 35mm) more redolent of the observer's actual view. It often also gives more impact to the picture.

Regards,
D.

 

[Turtle]

Disagreed. Wider lenses (of the 28-35 type) are responsible for a very large proportion of great landscapes since Ansel's time to the current day, but it depends on your environment and personal preferences. Mountains account for only a portion of the environment and I find myself using medium wides and short teles in this environment. In deserts, ultra wides and long teles become quite useful.... the sky is the limit. Look at some of the greatest large format landscape shooters and very many are shot with a 90mm on 5x4 (28 equivalent on 35mm) 120/110 (35mm) and 210 (70mm or so): Ansel, Loranc, Sexton, Ross, Westons, Joe Cornish all come to mind as users of wides and teles but rarely anything too extreme. Ansel made good use of the 159 Wollensak (about a 24mm equivalent) in a number of shots but also medium, std and long lenses. Longer lenses tended to be used at distance in the mountains or in open valleys against distant scenes.

I would say for landscapes in 35mm/FF you might be looking at three lenses ideally: Something like this:

24, 35, 75

Seeing as you would be shooting mainly stopped down to medium or smaller apertures, there is an argument to be made for not spending a fortune on Leica glass but looking instead at CV and Zeiss.

Buying a 21 or 24 summilux for landscapes would be a total waste of money and weight. Get a smaller slower lens which costs and weighs less. If you want to go down teh M8.2 route and want Leica, how about:

24 Elmar 3.8
75 Summarit

Together they are half the cost of a 21/24 lux and will provide a medium wide, std and tele. If he moves to a M9 later on he will have a super wide, mild wide and short tele. This assumes retaining the 35 summarit.