Do I need a wide angle lens

As a fairly new starter to photography and just recently bought a Pentax DL2 with a Pentax DA 1:3.5-5.6/18-55 mm lens & Sigma 55-200mm 1:4-5.6 lens.And as my main interest is mainly Landscape and Beach photography do I need to buy a wide angle lens. I would appreciate any advice given. Thank you ---Evets

Hi... Steve?

I have found the kit lens adequate for landscape photography. The only improvement I made was to get the 16-45mm DA lens. If you're happy with the quality, rather save your money, take more photos and stitch them together. Landscape doesn't move around between shots, so getting everything all at once is not as crucial. Just don't waste ten minutes on a 24 photo panorama at sunset. By the time you're done, sun's gone...

Remember that in this day and age, digital memory is so cheap that no one can claim buying more storage capacity is too expensive. Be liberal with your shots.

As to what to do with the extra funds? Get a good circular polarizing filter (biggest filter thread in your collection), and a step up ring. The rest can be done in PhotoShop.

I went 52mm - 58mm and now I have the 16-45 with 67mm threads.

The only person who can tell you if you need a wider lens is you.

If you find yourself often wishing you had something wider, then you need one. If not, you don't.

Your style and vision are unique to you. Let them develop naturally.

G

Thanks to Michael & G for your advise, Points taken.I am quite happy with the lens I have, I just thought by having the wider lens might give me a greater Depth of Field and sharper images

Steve,

You are correct to say that the wider angled lenses will give greater D.O.F. and possibly sharper images, but the short end of your zoom should be giving you pretty much of what you are after? No?

I'm no expert in digital, but on film, depth and sharpness are pretty intense at 35mm and below. To me, the most obvious difference as you get wider is image.

Gee, that also applies to my waist! Hmmmmmm

Cheers

If you are conscious that your images could be sharper there are two things I would suggest. Firstly, using a tripod when shutter speeds become slower or when using longer lenses in all but the brightest light will make the most dramatic difference to sharpness. Using your longer lens with hand held shutter speeds of less than 1/500 sec will almost certainly compromise sharpness. Also, using medium apertures will give the best optical results from the lens (maybe f8-f11) which will make camera shake more likely, so again use a tripod.

Secondly, if you are really critical beyond this, then a better lens is the next step. Although, for example, the 18-55mm is very good at smaller apertures (a bit soft wide open) the 16-45mm is better and will give you a distinct step upwards in quality.

There are other factors in sharpness, such as using the lowest ISO setting on the camera and even the sort of subjects you take, but hopefully the above will be helpful.

Many thanks to Mac and John for their very wise replies to my query,and will take note and ponder where to go from here,hopefully taking more sharper photos.Thank you!!

Hi Steve, (again with ??)

you might want to look at this article about the hyperfocal distance of lenses..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocal_distance

There's a lot of maths there which you may or may not want to skip through..

As a general rule of thumb, to get the best overall front to back sharpness in an image, you need to focus around a third of the way into the landscape. (I'm waiting for the rest of you to tell me I got that wrong.. I usually do)..

Also, this might help both you and others new to photography..

http://www.dofmaster.com/

It's a Depth Of Field calculator. From what I can see ( I only found the link earlier) you download the file (free), and print off the dials; pin them together, then just turn the dials to the parameters of the lens, aperture etc to calculate DOF.

Hope that helps

Cheers

Liam

I'm certainly not going to say you're wrong Liam, it's a tried and tested method. However, I've always wondered, when doing landscapes, using a lens that focuses from say, 2 feet to infinity, exactly how far a third of the way to infinity is...

I think that's a question that should be reserved to a loftier forum, one involving monkeys and Shakespeare.

Dan

Hi Daniel,

if that's about if you get enough monkeys, they'll be able to type the complete works of Shakespeare eventually.. it can be done theoretically.. except you'd need more monkeys than there are atoms in the universe, and more time than the universe is likely to be around. ***

To be exact, a lens can't actually focus to infinity, by definition, as it's an infinite distance. The two outer lines (as seen in focussing diagrams) would to all intents and purposes be running parallel, and hence would never acheive a point at which they converge giving a focussing distance.

Yes I'm a nerd.

Cheers

Liam

*** I can dig out the figures if you want.

Yes, monkeys, and many of them. The 'figures' are either:

a. An infinite amount of monkeys (and just long enough for one monkey to type it all up, while some others did all the Ruth Rendells, Catherine Cooksons, Jeffrey Archers and Barbara Cartlands).

or

b. An infinite amount of time and one monkey (and an infinite supply of bananas to keep him going. The wife's saying "do monkeys eat bananas?", but quite frankly, after a while, a monkey will eat anything, even, at a push, the wife's cooking ).


But, yes, very true, how can a lens focus to infinity? I may take this up with Pentax, get them to label their lenses properly.

Anyway, enough of this nonsense, time for bed.
Dan

Sorry Evets, sort of wandered off the point a bit there.

I'm with George on this one - if you feel that your photos don't have the exagerated perspective that a wider lens will give you, then a wider lens is for you. I was used to the perspective a 24mm lens gave me on film, I just preferred the look of it to 28mm. So when I first got my 'D', with kit lens, it didn't seem wide enough, so I later got the 16-45, which gives the same field of view and perspective as my 24mm on film.

As John says, the kit lens is fine stopped down, and for landscapes, to aid composition as well as sharpness, I would advise using a sturdy tripod.

Having said that, if you can try a wider lens for some beach photos, do. The extra wide view might suit your vision. I've got a Sigma 10-20mm, and on the beaches of Cornwall recently I had a great time with it.

Dan