Wide angle landscapes

This is not something I've really tried much before, so please feel free to comment frankly. The content may not be stunning, but it's the best I can manage within 5/10 mins walk of home and it's comments on technique and how to improve that I'd appreciate. All taken with K-3 and Sigma 10-20mm. Thanks.
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To me personally most landscape shots, with some exceptions, have the details of the landscapes to small for me. I prefer a focal length of about 35-70mm.

However the building is super. This is the reason I would like to have a lens with the 10-20mm focal range.

This Sigma lens seems to be an extremely good lens.

Regards, Horst

Great clouds in nos. 1, 2 & 4 - they always help. Like Horst, I also like the building.

I am increasingly using a range of focal lengths for landscapes, from 10mm up to 300mm, and it all depends on what I an after, and what is in front of me. However, I tend to use the UWA more for urban settings, but even that is a generalisation!

Phil

I like them all, and have to admit the Sigma 10-20 is a real favourite of mine.

I rather like these... Good, simple, well balanced compositions... And lots of space to let them breathe...

There's quite a few uwa users here, so am sure you'll get plenty of gd advice... And there's any number of ways to use them...

For me, they're particularly useful for landscape, and brilliant for helping you make emotional connections with it... I find they're especially good at suggesting scale, and the emotions that often go hand in hand with that: drama, awe, isolation, tranquility, etc....

It seems to me that less is almost always more... there can be a temptation to use them to cram lots of stuff in... Which you might find works for you... But I've increasingly found myself using them as much to capture the space around an object (ie the context) as the object itself...

No right or wrong here, just my thoughts... good luck with it... They're infuriating to use at times, but great fun, and when you get it right, extremely rewarding...

Best

I always wanted a Sigma 10-20 then had the good fortune to try one. It really is far too wide for most of my landscapes and the distortion lends a sense of unreality to some shots.

You certainly get plenty of sky in the frame but any interesting landscape details are reduced to insignificance. You definitely need to search out a strong foreground element (but not your feet).

Having said all of this there are plenty of photographers who know just how to use the lens to best effect and love it.

These are all very nice John, well composed and exposed!

I think you will enjoy the K-3 for landscapes - it's my 'go to' camera for this sort of work. The only comment I would make is that the shadow detail needs lifting on some of them, this is easily done in post processing and contrary to reports from some others I have never found a problem in recovering shadow details from K-3 files.

Regards
David

In these shots I like the compositions and their interesting skies. However, just a subjective point - everything below the sky is a just bit too dark for me.

Cheers.
Philip

I'm sure I've seen that building before in Last Of The Summer Wine? Correct me if I'm wrong.
CHEERS Vic.

Thank you all for taking time to comment.
I can understand the view that details can get "lost" in a wide landscape setting - maybe sometimes the sense of wide-open space is more important, or evoking a reaction or memory in the way that Bill describes. Interesting skies always appeal to me, so getting exposure right is something I need to work on - I can see that the dark areas need lifting, so will see what I can do with them.
Even though I had read up on wide angle lenses before, what still stands out to me is the huge depth suggested - the reservoir in the foreground is nowhere near as long as the images suggest.
Lastly, Vic, I've never watched LOTSW, so couldn't say, but I'd be surprised, as the building is nowhere near Holmfirth. It's a former textile finishing company building now converted like so many mills in the area into appartments. Splendid buildings, better renovated than flattened!

My own experience at 14mm has taught me that one key aspect to consider with these very wide views, is that the exposure balance is significantly changed ... namely, (as in your first 4 shots here), the sky gains increased weighting in the matrix pattern, and even in a centre-weighted reading, often beyond the point that the camera's algorithms can deal with. The result is as we see here, skies bright on the verge of blowing out, and dark and dull ground underneath.

The last shot here is the most successful in terms of this metering balance, mainly because it has a fair amount of directly lit zones in the midtones. The first 4 lack this, in fact they have very little midtone values, and no directly lit midtones. For this reason I think pure shadow lifting on its own will be of limited value - it will work better on the last where the shadows can blend more subtly with the good mids ( the sunlit areas on the fields and hillside).

Soilutions? Well, I would treat the skys and ground differently ... first point the camera up a bit to read the sky, fix it in manual, take the shot ... then point down a bit to read the ground more, take another shot (ideally tripod of course, but if you're careful it can be OK without, perhaps using the auto bracketing feature?) ...then blend the exposures in processing (Photoshop layers are the logical best technique.) No folks, don't panic, I'm NOT going to mention the OTHER option! :mrgreen

Must admit that I'm no ultrawide expert.

I think these are nice shots, no1 & 4 are my favorites. As has been said already, I think you could do with a little lift of the shadows in most of these.

The mill has just a touch of converging verticals, with all those vertical it can be hard to get them right with the 10-20 if you don't keep it absolutely level! Dont forget you can always crop to get rid of bits you don't want, if you have to go wider.

Nice picks though

+1

And far from giving a feel of wide open space they tend to me to squash everything in, so that far from wide open it all feels oddly enclosed and unnatural.

I had a 10-20 but I hated it for landscapes and sold it.

That said one and six are the most successful for me - one as a study in clouds, and 6 because it has enough foreground to anchor the view, and interesting sky too.

Interesting and thought-provoking comments! With my limited experience of wide-angle, I'm beginning to think already that if you want "interesting landscape details", a 10-20mm lens is not the one to use. On the other hand, some landscape shots, such as the ones above (and others to follow), try to convey not detail but space and breadth of view, or to emphasise a particularly attractive element of the landscape eg. clouds, water, reflections etc. The skill, I guess, is to achieve that without excessive distortion of reality (unless that is the intention.) Finally, some will always prefer a landscape which highlights interesting detail (which by definition has therefore to be prominent in the image); others will be attracted by simplicity of content and composition.
Two of the above with shadows lifted slightly as suggested, then some new ones from this morning:

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2



The next group is K-3 + Sigma 10-20mm

3 (at 13mm)



4 (at 10mm)



5 (at 12mm)



The next three are with the Pentax 18-135mm lens. Noticeably different, but better or worse?

6 (same view as no.5 at 18mm instead of 12mm)



7 (different view at 40mm)



8 (And finally same as no.7 at 78mm)



I would add that resizing these has not done them any favours! By the way, the cooling towers on the left skyline in no.8 are at Ferrybridge, 26 miles away as the crow flies!

Thanks again,

I don't want to come across as hyper-critical but all of these lack compositional interest for me. You need features for the viewer to focus on and to stop the eye just drifting off the edges of the frame. There needs to be a point to a landscape and strong lines within. Think of it as having something interesting in the foreground, middle and distance. Perhaps a natural frame. Not always possible, I know.

This area appear to have potential and the clouds are good as well, but compositionally, there's just a series of horizontals stretching across the view.I wonder why you didn't use the gap in the wall in no.8, the pile of stones in no.7, the line of fence posts in no.5...

It's hard to do this remotely but as you live in the north, I'd try to tag along with, say, David Storm or Jim Ennis inter-alia and watch what they do in the landscape. failing that, study the work of great landscape photographers and see how they do it.

This is kind of what I mean, although the photographer had the good fortune to be in North Wales and to be using a K10...