chapin in utah Loc: Utah

Hi folks.
Its been a while since I posted here.
But I need expert opinions about what lens should I rent or possibly buy.
I shoot with a nikon D7000, and usually I am carring a 18-200 vrll lens with me.
But soon i will be traveling to escalante petrified state park, kanarraville canyon hiking, and zions nat park, including angels landing hike there.

So. Lots of great landscapes, and since my nikon is crop sensor I am already loosing something of my 18-200 lens. (Like 24-300) Not to mention is a little on the heavy side.

I have been thinking of renting a tokina 11-16 but I have no previous experience with ultra wide lens, and I dont want fish eye effect if its possible.
What you guys recommend for my nikon 7000?

WayneT Loc: Paris, TN

I have the 11-20 Tokina f2.8 and love it's versatility. Great lens.

chapin in utah Loc: Utah

Do you have a shot you can share?
I really would like to see how you compose such a wide lense.

Math78 Loc: Scottsdale, AZ

Flickr is a great site to browse if you want examples of photos taken with a particular lens. You can search by lens. This is a Tokina 11-16mm group. Lots of other also.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/638028@N25/pool/with/15900364402/

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Huh? I only clicked once.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

No matter what ultra wide you pick, you better take the other lens also. Unless reality is suspended in those places you WILL have scenes/images you want that need reach instead of width. I bought the Tamron 10-24 then remembered I really don't like wides much, but my daughter fell in love with it, it became part of her college graduation present. When I want/need to go wide I use a 14 mm prime.

As I noted on another thread asking for lens advice for landscape. 10 mm or 1000 mm, it is the one that frames your main subject the way you want it to to look.

bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

I shoot sony full frame and aps-c, I tried a cheaper 8mm lens on both and got extreme wide angle with only a slight curving at the edges. I had to go to 5.8mm to get the circular effect.

par4fore Loc: Bay Shore N.Y.

Tokina 11-16, Just do it, you will be happy.

Jim Bob

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

The Tokina 10-20/f2.0 is suppose to be a real good pc of glass!

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Bear in mind, once you get below 15mm, you will have some barrel distortion you will have to fix in Photoshop. Another way is to use your 18-55 lens in vertical mode and create panos with two or three overlapping shots. You can do this with a tripod or hand held if you have a bottom edge you can align the shots on. Photoshop will do seemless panos. Attached is a 2 verical shot pano, and a multi shot 180 degree pano. No lens will give you a distrtion free 180 degree pano.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You probably already have what you need. You just need to explore a better way to use it.

Ultra wide lenses have a very disconcerting and severe "extension distortion" that manifests itself by making things that are in the foreground appear HUGE and things in the distance appear very tiny. It's ok for the occasional pic for a dramatic effect, but to go on a trip and take vista after vista with a really wide lens I think would be a mistake.

Think about the landscape masters - who only painted what they saw. They did not have wide angle lenses - only their eyes. If they wanted to "take in" a wider view - they turned their heads. Their "perspective" did not change, nor did any one of them use a point of view that resembled an ultra wide lens.

In camera terms, the equivalent of turning your head would be to turn the camera - in order to get a wider view. Shoot with the camera in portrait orientation, and overlap each shot 50% with the previous one, to get a better stitch in post processing. Use Lightroom, Photoshop, Panotools, Hugin, or any one of a number of very decent pano stitching tools to make it happen.

I typically use a 45mm lens or longer on a full frame camera to do my landscape panos, even though I have a 14-24 which at the wide end has a field of view equivalent to a 9.33 mm lens on a crop camera. I looked through my catalog and found that I used it about 2% of the time for landscapes. My most used lens is a 45, followed by my 85, 80-200, and 100-300. I have even used a 600mm lens for landscapes. The slight to moderate compression distortion is more "natural" than the extension distortion of a wide or ultra wide lens. Our perception is better at compressing than extending.

The first image was done with a 100mm lens, 4 overlapping shots.

The second was done with a 45mm lens, 5 overlapping shots.

As you can see, the resulting image is quite high resolution. The ones posted here are downsized for posting, but I did add the original dimensions in pixels to the label for each. I usually use a tripod, but when I don't have one I have done panos hand-held with great results.

(Download)

17900x8041 px

(Download)

Jeffcs Loc: Myrtle Beach South Carolina

I'm total Nikkor glass but for my D500 for UW lens I picked up the Tokina 11-16 2.8 pro version of the lens it's awesome

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I used a Tokina 11-16 on my D7100 and then got the 16-28mm when I went full frame. Nice lens, no complaints.

RKL349 Loc: Connecticut

This lens is highly recommended by Ken Rockwell. I think B&H has them on sale right now.