Shd I buy a wide angle lens?

[dana]

I find that, on some of my landscape shots, the background is too far away and not well defined. Wd a wide angle lens be more appropriate? If so, wd a 18-24 lens be a good choice?

The attached picture was taken at nite with a tripod with a 55-200 lens @ f4.2, 1/250, iso 1600, 62mm focal length.

[Mitchell]

Complete opposite, you would need a telephoto lens, a telephoto lens it will compress the image, making the background look closer.

[dana]

But a telephoto lens loses width in the shot. I have read that a wide angle lens is recommended (?) for landscape photography.

[bob_r]

I find that, on some of my landscape shots, the background is too far away and not well defined. Wd a wide angle lens be more appropriate? If so, wd a 18-24 lens be a good choice?

The attached picture was taken at nite with a tripod with a 55-200 lens @ f4.2, 1/250, iso 1600, 62mm focal length.

Dana,

The problem is your settings and Mitchell is correct about a telephoto lens compressing the background. When you take a night picture, you want to use a tripod, a lower ISO setting, a small aperture setting (f/5.6 to f/16 - diffraction could be a problem with a smaller setting) and a slow camera speed. Your image has a lot of noise because of the high ISO setting which was needed because of the shutter speed.

Here's a pic I took at night using a 35 f/1.4 lens on a 30D.
1/3s f/6.3 at 35.0mm iso400 (could have used a lower ISO setting)


This shot was taken from my driveway with a 17-55IS on a 30D.
1/4s f/2.8 at 55.0mm iso200 (I used f/2.8 since the only thing I wanted in sharp focus was the church steeple).


Here's one more just to show you a night shot with a wide angle lens (Canon 10-22).
1/30s f/4.0 at 10.0mm iso100 (this was shot without a tripod so I needed the f/4 setting)

[dana]

S I guess I'm set with my 18-55 & 55-200 lenses. I just have to work on my settings when I'm composing a shot. Right?

Thanks guys.

[bob_r]

I think you should be good with your current lenses for night photography. Just close the aperture a little, reduce the ISO settings and shutter speed and I think you'll be happy with the results.
I have the Canon 10-22 lens, but rarely use the ultra-wide settings. I use my 17-55IS a lot more than the 10-22 since I rarely need less than 17mm.
Be sure to post some images taken with the slower settings.

[dana]

Photo 1 - 1/80, iso 100, f5.3, 145mm, wb cloudy

Photo 2 - levels adjustment & hi pass filter action

How do I get the results in #2 without pp?

Also I took some shots in complete darkness of a moonscape. My camera's, Nikon D40X, auto focus couldn't focus, so I tried using manual focus on a tripod with blurry results. #3 f4.2, 1/20, iso 200, 60mm, wb cloudy

[dana]

Here are the pix mentioned above

[bob_r]

Dana,

Try setting you aperture to f/8, f/11 or f/16. This will increase your open shutter time and should give you a little more color saturation, although you may still need to bump it up a little in post.
Some lenses simply capture color better than others and most of the ones that do are not cheap.

[dana]

Thanks all.