One of our readers recently asked me an interesting question, which is whether or not it helps to have a large maximum aperture in landscape photography. Of course, the answer will be different for every photographer, but I wanted to go through some of the important considerations today.
Shallow Depth of Field
Most landscape photography is done at narrow aperture values in order to get more depth of field. The “classic landscape” look today is usually accomplished in the range from about f/8 to f/16. For that reason, even if your lens has a wide maximum aperture (say, f/1.4 or f/1.8), you may not find yourself using it very often.
Landscape photography wasn’t always synonymous with maximizing sharpness from foreground to background. In fact, when landscape photography was first finding its footing over 150 years ago, the more common goal was the opposite: soft focus, “dreamy” landscapes, often with a shallow depth of field.
I think that there’s room today to embrace landscape photos with a shallow depth of field, to say the least. It’s an under-explored side of landscape photography with a lot of promise.
Given that, landscape photographers may want to get a large-aperture lens for the same reasons as a portrait photographer: to give you more control over depth of field, and to allow for substantially out-of-focus backgrounds.
Low-Light Focusing
Another reason to consider a large-aperture lens as a landscape photographer is that it makes it easier to focus in low-light environments.
An aperture of f/4 lets in twice as much light as f/5.6. Opening to f/2.8 doubles it again; likewise with f/2, and once more with f/1.4. Ultimately, someone with an f/1.4 or f/1.8 lens can autofocus in conditions with just a small fraction of the light you would need at f/4 or f/5.6. (The benefit of shooting with a 24mm f/1.4 versus a 16-35mm f/4 is that you can autofocus when there is merely 12.5% as much ambient light.)
If you’ve ever struggled to lock onto your landscape in low light, this can be a big reason to choose a large-aperture lens, even if you stop down to f/8 or f/11 when actually taking the photo.
Milky Way Photography
Probably the most obvious time to use a wide-aperture lens for landscape photography is when photographing the Milky Way. The stars at night are so dim that every last bit of light-gathering capabilities will help. An f/2.8 lens is often considered the baseline, with an f/1.8 or f/1.4 optic considered ideal.
This relates the previous section, too – it’s much easier to focus on the stars when you have a wide maximum aperture. But the real benefit for Milky Way photography is that a large aperture captures much more light, allowing you to keep your noise levels as low as possible. Using an f/2 lens rather than an f/4 lens would allow you to shoot at ISO 3200 instead of ISO 12,800, for example.
That said, you may be surprised to hear that Milky Way photography is one case where you don’t necessarily need a wide aperture lens. Unlike the previous examples (getting a shallower depth of field and autofocusing in ultra-low light), I consider a large maximum aperture to be just “very helpful” rather than “necessary” for photographing the Milky Way.
I’ve previously written about the technique of image averaging that allows you to take sharp, clean photos of the night sky at any aperture. My primary Milky Way lens these days is Nikon’s 14-30mm f/4, which is hardly a wide-aperture lens. But by stacking together several minutes of exposure, even an f/4 lens lets you get essentially noise-free Milky Way photos. The downside is that the image averaging process takes some extra time in the field, and it’s another step in your post-processing workflow to worry about.
I would still prefer a wide-aperture lens for Milky Way photography, but I don’t want our readers to think it’s the only way to get clean photos of the night sky. If you’re on a budget or you carried a lightweight lens into the backcountry, you can still get good Milky Way photos.
Better Image Quality… Maybe
Generally speaking, lenses with a large maximum aperture are going to be more expensive than lenses with a narrow maximum aperture. But does this mean that they’re sharper or better optically?
We’ve been conditioned to believe that “more expensive = higher quality,” and sometimes this does hold true with lenses. Most f/2.8 zooms that I’ve tested, for example, are sharper than their f/4 or variable-aperture counterparts at a given aperture.
However, it’s not a perfect correlation. Sometimes, when you pay more for a large-aperture lens, you really are just paying for the wider maximum aperture (or other benefits like build quality). The image quality in the shared aperture range may not be any better at all. For example, Nikon’s F-mount 35mm f/1.8G is actually sharper than the Nikon 35mm f/1.4G, while being less expensive.
Also, keep in mind that image quality differences between two lenses will be most visible at maximum aperture. As you stop down to something like f/8, f/11, or f/16, most modern lenses are going to look pretty similar to one another. Since a lot of landscape photographers stick to those apertures, springing for a wide-aperture lens may not be necessary
So, you can’t assume that a large maximum aperture means a lens will have better image quality. This might be true on average, but it’s always down to the specific lenses that you’re considering.
Drawbacks of a Large Maximum Aperture
Lens manufacturers typically have to sacrifice a lot in order to design a lens with a large maximum aperture. Such lenses tend to be larger, heavier, and more expensive than their narrow-aperture counterparts. If you’re considering a zoom lens, you may also find that the f/2.8 options have a more limited range of focal lengths, such as 24-70mm rather than 24-120mm. Finally, specialty glass like tilt-shift lenses (which can be very helpful for landscape photography) usually have narrower maximum apertures, too.
Some of these drawbacks may matter to you as a landscape photographer, while others may not. If you’re the type of photographer who does a lot of backcountry hiking, it’s probably much smarter to carry a lightweight set of f/4 zooms rather than pro-tier f/2.8 zooms or f/1.4 primes. I would say exactly the same thing to photographers on a budget, or to anyone who just wants a more portable kit.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Weighing the pros and cons, I think it makes sense for landscape photographers to have at least one large-aperture lens in their bag. Even a compact lens like a 50mm f/1.8 or 40mm f/2 allows you to experiment with depth of field and low-light landscape photography in a way that a slow zoom cannot.
I’ve seen some landscape photographers dismiss f/2.8 zooms or f/1.2 primes as unnecessarily large and expensive, but I think the benefits of such lenses can be significant even for landscape work. It just depends if you’re willing to pay the price (monetary and weight) for what you get.
My general recommendation hasn’t changed, which is that a lighter set of lenses makes more sense to most landscape photographers. But it shouldn’t be considered controversial to embrace the “maximalist” approach instead, where you deal with more weight and higher prices in exchange for the flexibility of a wider maximum aperture, even for landscape photography.
One of my goals this year as a landscape photographer is to experiment more with shallow depth of field, and not just in close-ups or intimate landscapes. This will involve shooting at some unorthodox apertures like f/1.2 through f/2.8, but I’m interested to see if I can capture any landscape photos that make it worthwhile.
What about you – are you the type to carry large-aperture lenses as a landscape photographer, or have you built a more minimalist kit? I’m interested to hear your experiences in the comment section below!
Olá, Spencer!
Uso uma lente de 20mm, outra zoom de 70-300mm e uma Voitlander de 40mm F1.2 para fotos com pouca profundidade de campo, exatamente como você comentou! E essa lente acabou sendo uma surpresa, pois a renderização de cores e nitidez fechada é excepcional, se tornando minha preferida para paisagens.
If you only do landscape, I think than a f4.0 kit lens is better. But if you do landscapes and portrait photography, I prefer to have a f2,8 kit. No doubt. Thanks
I have to admit, I usually stop down taking the occasional landscapes but I am intrigued to see your experiments with shallower depth of field this year.
Thanks, Jason! Who knows, but I think there’s some promise there.
I have 3 lenses. I use two of these for landscape photography and both have reasonably large apertures – an 11 mm f/1.8 and a 17-70mm f/2.8. Neither are too heavy to take on long hikes.
I sometimes want to take more than just sweeping vistas, so having the option to occasionally shoot at wider apertures is more important to me than the little bit of reach I’d get if I switched my heaviest lens for an f/4. I should also make it clear I use a crop sensor camera, so 70mm is less limiting than it seems.
Some really good points there. I have a couple large wide aperture lenses mainly for astro work (I live in Scotland and often have to work with gaps in the cloud when stacking isn’t an option), but I also really like the Z 24-120 for daytime stuff especially when I’m traveling light.
I also use the 24-120 most of the time, but I have the 20mm 1.8 for Astro and some wide landscape. I debated between the 20mm and the 14-30 but decided to get the prime. I sometimes regret it, but the image quality is really great and I’m mostly happy with it. I just wish it was an 18mm 1.8 or something like that and it would have really sold it for me with a bigger difference than 20mm and 24mm.
HI !
I’m shooting night sky, and used large apertures, Very practical :)
Fuji + Viltrox 13mm/1.4 (non tracked)
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I worry about focusing at a wide aperture and then stopping down to take the photo. Is there any risk of the focus point changing slightly as you change the aperture?
Not particularly. Focus shift can be an issue with some lenses, but mainly if you stop down from (say) f/1.8 to f/2.8. As you use increasingly narrow apertures, the added depth of field usually takes care of focus shift entirely. I have no concerns focusing wide open any time that I’m stopped down to f/8 or narrower, and usually I wouldn’t be worried at f/4 or f/5.6, either. Though it does depend on the lens, and you should test yours to make sure it’s not an exception.
I bought a Sigma 24mm f1.4 specifically for astrophotography and it works really well for that purpose. But on day outings, when hiking, or traveling I leave it at home because it’s so dang heavy. Instead, I bring a lighter Tamron 70-300 mm f4 to have more options to get in close though less grand. But you’ve got me thinking about exploring different possibilities with the heavier 24 mm in more intimate or low light settings. The added weight is a sacrifice as the potential is exciting.
You should try it out! I think that otherwise traditional landscape photos, but shot at 24mm and f/1.4, with careful composition to highlight the strengths of the narrow depth of field, have a lot of potential.
Sigma’s 14mm f/1.4 is an intriguing option astrophotography. I hope they come out with one for Z-mount.
This essay comes very timely for me. I recently rediscovered my wider apertures in low light as a way to minimize my ISO settings. What brought this up for me was trying to learn to use manual flash. When I didn’t do so well at manual flash, I realized that using wider apertures without flash gave me those lower ISO advantages in capturing my low light scenes.
As for my wide aperture lenses, I do have a couple at f/2.8 and one f/1.4 and f/1.8, but those are smaller primes. The well known 24-70 f/2.8 is a fabulous lens but so heavy that I seldom use it, which bears out the point you were making. I have the 20mm f/1.8 that I bought to learn astrophotography, but have seldom had a chance to try it out, because I have a tendency to prefer zooms over primes when shooting. Wider aperture lenses do fascinate me, and I will always choose one when possible, just so I have the options in case I need them.
As a last thought, it really bugs me that Nikon is no longer making f mount lenses. Isn’t there some way that we can encourage them to go back to making them? There are plenty of DSLR users who aren’t going to switch to the z line who would still love to buy lenses. I especially want some good lenses for the D850, as most of their current lineup according to Nasim don’t resolve well for this amazing camera.
The only way to convince them to make new lenses is for the market to support that.
It doesn’t.
The market may still support manufacturing existing designs, but quite clearly Nikon’s future is in their mirrorless line, otherwise they would still be making new DSLR designs. They were late to the mirrorless game as it is, and gave up significant ground to Sony and Canon in the ILC market.
My point is that there certainly is a healthy market for new f mount lenses, as there is a market for new DSLR models. These two lines could easily live side by side and both be profitable to Nikon. DSLR didn’t die, Nikon (and the other brands) killed it. But the mirrorless game is not the only game in town. I believe that far more photographers around the world have not switched to mirrorless, and will not do so. They are staying with the line that they invested so much money in and like better. In any comparison between two identical photos, DSLR images are always preferred above the mirrorless ones.
I disagree. There is no way the two lines could be developed in parallel profitably. Nikon would need to expand their capacity (design and production), and the market is simply not large enough to support that financially.
There is a market for new F-mount lenses, but I doubt it’s a large enough market to support new designs, new manufacturing lines, and all of the physical and personnel infrastructure required to maintain them.
Even if the market was big enough for it, Nikon as a company isn’t big enough to maintain two different R&D lines for two different lens mounts.
Companies, especially smaller ones, need to make choices about what they maintain vs. what they obsolete.
The last F-mount lens they released was the specialist 120-300mm f/2.8 in 2020. We haven’t seen a new lens since, and I’m going to be very surprised if we see any more new first-party F-mount glass.
> In any comparison between two identical photos, DSLR images are always preferred above the mirrorless ones.
This is simply false. Nobody aside from the photographer knows what was used to create the image. It’ll matter for if the photographer is more comfortable with the OVF vs. EVF, if the AF is better, or if the camera body had the flexibility to enable the shot to be made. But DSLR is just a way to take a picture, just like mirrorless is a way to take a picture. Nothing sacred about it that makes it intrinsically better.
The old DSLRs are excellent cameras. The D850 and D500 are renowned for good reason. But the market is moving on, and Nikon can either follow the market or turn into Pentax. Thankfully, they seem to be following the market for now. I just hope it’s in time for them to survive.
There are a lot of great lenses out there and a less expensive than their mirrorless counterparts, especially used. What are you looking for that isn’t already available?
Well….what I dream about is an f mount 28-300 PF lens with the same features as the current one, especially the 1.6 foot minimum focusing distance. I crave the sharpness that would give this great lens that struggles at some f stops. It would resolve well for the D850, which would be important to me. I could use the lighter weight, too.
I seem to have stirred up a hornet’s nest among PL’s current crop of gearhead guys. I never meant for that to happen. I just hoped Spencer could give Nikon some encouragement not to forget us f mount users.
What I said about comparing the images is true. PL ran an article comparing images and in almost every case, readers preferred the DSLR photos. The reason for that is that the wide mouth lenses are almost too sharp. The pictures look sterile and without warmth by comparison. And that, fellas, is strictly my opinion. :)
It does feel like DSLR users are left adrift without any new lenses or bodies on the way, but at the same time, there are plenty of very good F-mount lenses that are now selling for excellent prices on the used market. I have an article in mind to write about that soon.
As a separate point, the comparison that Libor wrote wasn’t meant to be scientific, just for fun, and it had a few confounding variables. I’d be interested in doing a more controlled comparison and seeing whether anyone could reliably see a difference in a blind, unlabeled test. I suspect the answer would be no, especially if the same lens were used on the DSLR and on the mirrorless camera with the FTZ adapter. But it would be interesting to find out.
I think it would only be fair if you use z lenses on z cameras and f lenses on DSLR cameras, otherwise what would be the point of any comparison? After all, the sensors are the same. The whole competition stands between the two lens technologies. I suppose the difference is in the way light bounces around inside the lenses before hitting the sensors, and glass to sensor distances, based on the wide throat vs narrower throat difference. Finally, the same person behind both cameras should be another constant. Given those conditions, it would make an interesting comparison. Not that it would sway me. I still think that DSLR photos would be superior. :)
We have gotten way off the point of this essay, which is that using wider apertures for landscape photography can be a very good way to shoot.
I’d love to see some side-by-sides of the same F-mount lenses on the same sensors, and then F-mount vs. Z-mount equivalents. Nothing comes for free, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the greater sharpness of the Z mount lenses has come at a cost to color vibrancy if it wasn’t a design constraint, which is what the pictures suggest might be happening (or it’s the different reproduction due to the different sensors).
At the same time I wonder what sort of tests could tease those differences out–the less I need to process my photos for good color, the happier I am.
While I’ve seen color differences among lenses, I find environment-specific color profiles, made with a color checker, go further to reduce color edits.
Sorry if I came out too strong.
I’ve worked in electronics and manufacturing for 10 years now, so I’ve seen these things play out. It comes down to economics, investment, and opportunity cost for the company. The Nikon move from F to Z or Canon’s EF to RF mount changes are intimately familiar to me. Same as their decommissioning of the older cameras which are no longer available. The Z6/Z7 are no longer offered on their website for example–almost certainly because the impending Z6iii/Z7iii release means the Z6ii/Z7ii are going to drop into that pricing slot.
It’s not about what people say they want unless they’re backing it up with tens of millions of dollars worth of purchases. Money talks.
Based on my experience, I expect existing F-mount manufacturing lines to be maintained until either it’s no longer profitable to maintain them or they run out of parts unique to each product, then they’ll decommission the line. Limiting factors might be things like the sensor, Expeed 5 processors, etc. for the F-mount cameras. I couldn’t guess what they might be for the lenses.
It’s not impossible I’m wrong, but if I were a betting man, I would put down money I’m right.
I see your point, but I question how it can be said that the market doesn’t support the manufacture of new f mount lenses when there are no new f mount lenses to be bought. How can the market support what isn’t there?
The whole premise of z was that it was lighter weight. In view of that, the imperfections of the electronic viewfinder could be tolerated. But the z cameras are barely any lighter than mirrored cameras, and the z lenses are just as heavy, if not more so, as the f mount lenses. The electronic viewfinder is still inferior to the optical viewfinder, in my opinion. I know they had a lot of problems with it at first. I don’t know how it is to use now.
In the olden days, the great lesson of beta max being crowded out by vhs, the lesser technology, was always quoted. But that was not the case with these camera lines. The DSLR line was murdered, plain and simple. Nikon issued the D850, widely reckoned to be the best digital camera ever made, and then abandoned it almost immediately because mirrorless came out. I doubt if there was a whole lot of statistical evidence that mirrorless would be the better seller. It became the only seller for all intents and purposes. I just think there was a lot of short sightedness going on. I hate the fact that the D500 and the 105mm macro were discontinued when people loved them. I think that maybe they did these things to make the z line sell better.
I just think it would be nice for us f mount users to be able to have some new and improved lenses to buy.
Ircut, Let us also look at demographics for a moment. It is undoubtedly the younger demographic that goes for mirrorless more, wouldn’t you say? But photography is not a young person’s game. They cannot afford the gear. So photography is really more about what mature people buy, who can afford to indulge in expensive equipment for a hobby. There is food for thought there, is there not? These younger CEO’s love to ignore older demographics, so we are stuck buying what they provide for the only demograpic that matters to them. It seems like short sighted thinking to me.
Thom Hogan, no youngster, referred to the D610 being like ‘your father’s Oldsmobile’. I don’t entirely get that being a Brit, but the Z5, 14-30 and 24-200 (my new landscape gear) is a lot lighter and more manageable than the D610, 16-35, 24-85 and 70-200/f4 (my old gear).
Oldsmobile was one of General Motors lines of cars. It was big and roomy and heavy, so it felt solid and safe. It became the car mainly senior citizens would buy because of its size and weight. Younger people would not buy it because of the association with oldsters. So a camera being like ‘your father’s Oldsmobile’ meant that it is a camera that old farts would buy and not younger people. If the Brits don’t have the ‘old fart’ reference, it means stodgy stick in the mud older people.
The attempt to appeal to the younger market is in cameras like the Z30 and Zfc. Their bread and butter is the classically designed cameras like the Z6/Z7/Z8/Z9, all of which have DSLR equivalents.
You’re taking this shift personally–it’s not personal at all. As I said up-thread, Nikon took too long to shift away from DSLRs and are paying the price in market share for it.
It’s about what the market is demanding. And it’s a shrinking market with cellphones eating away the low and mid-end, and reduced demand for professional photography eating away the high end.
So they have to adapt.
Or they die.
Nikon knows how many of each lens and camera they’re selling. They can make predictions on how many of a new lens or camera they’ll sell. If they’re not making it, that means the math doesn’t work. They’re not going to make a profit, or they’re not going to make *enough* of a profit over some other use of that R&D group or manufacturing line.
I have a friend that used to work at Intel, and the challenge for any new product was “can this use of Intel’s money beat 8% year over year? If not, why am I not parking that money in an index fund instead of funding your shitty product?” Intel may have a shitty corporate culture, but that’s the question every successful company has to ask themselves when they fund a new product or maintain an existing one. Is this use of money better than just parking it in the stock market? If it isn’t, go back to the drawing board and come up with something better.
Lots of people still prefer the OVF and that’s fine. Lots of people still prefer film over digital. That’s also fine. But the market–AKA the number of lenses/cameras/etc. sold first party–doesn’t support new development of DSLRs (or film cameras, or even film!). A company like Nikon gets $0 out of every body and lens that KEH or MPB sells. They do not care about the used market. It’s how many can they sell new.
Similarly, look at the compact camera market. I would like a nice pocketable compact camera with a better lens than the tiny plastic one on my cellphone, but the cellphones have annihilated the compact camera market. There’s no money there anymore for the companies, and with a handful of exceptions like the Fuji X100V or the OM-1 TG-6, they’ve all pulled out of that market. Nikon used to make a number of good quality compact and bridge cameras but they’re reduced to making only a handful of outdated designs now. They haven’t seen updates in years, and many aren’t available at all other than used.
Companies respond to market realities, and the market reality is that DSLRs don’t support the kind of R&D and sales they used to. It doesn’t matter what you or I as individuals want, it matters about what the population is buying.
And they’re not buying enough DSLRs. So Nikon and Canon have responded by putting out the cameras people want more, which is apparently mirrorless.
I prefer mirrorless because of WYSIWYG, but there’s nothing sacred about it. It’s a way to take pictures. It’s easier than film. If something else comes along I’ll probably jump on it, as long as it makes it easier to take pictures than not.
I’m not a fan of phone cameras because I find the viewfinder helps my composition, but I’ve known very good photographers who use their phones to good effect.
To your point, since Nikon isn’t going to make new products for me, I’m not going to buy anything from them either. I only buy used, even when I could buy a lens or camera I want, new. Of course that exacerbates the problem, but my purchases aren’t going to make a difference.
One of my neighbors just retired from Nikon (I live in Tochigi, Japan) and he has no use for mirrorless cameras either! 😜
See Thom Hogan’s article today about F mount ‘dying with a whimper’.
RIP.
But I wouldn’t trade my D7500 for anything current in Z mount. And unless the Z6iii has a dx mode that is at least the equal of my D7500, I can’t see myself buying anything in Z mount beyond my Z5 and 14-30and 24-200. I’ve not seen anything to suggest that any Z mount lens is better than my F mount 300/f4 and 500/f5.6. And I don’t have the budget for 600mm exotics (plus a TC) to equal the ‘reach’ the 500mm gives me on dx.
I have the 28-300, but use it on my D750 which is more forgiving of it; in fact, it’s my default lens for that camera. My D850 is sitting next to it with the 24-70 f/2.8E attached and about thirteen other lenses (I’m too lazy to count) waiting for whichever camera will have them. :-)
I agree with your take on DSLR vs MILC … it’s NOT strictly your opinion. I also prefer the look of older movies over the new ones for the same reason.
Elaine I wholeheartedly agree with you, love my D850 and pissed that new F mount lenses are not making it to the market place. There is a silver lining though, I spend way less time viewing photography sites and, I have moved into the world of printing and framing. I also prefer the look of DSLR images especially when creating large prints, the sharpness of mirror less looks too much like A.I. for my taste.