topic Re: best mirrorless landscape/portrait lens. in EF & RF Lenses

best landscape/portrait lens for EOS R5

Dmcd3055 — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 13:30:57 GMT

what is the best mirrorless landscape/portrait lens. I have an R5 TIA

Re: best mirrorless landscape/portrait lens.

shadowsports — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 01:45:20 GMT

Greetings,

You're asking to cover a fairly broad spectrum. What's is your budget?

I love my 15-35 f2.8 for landscapes, architecture and street photography.

For portraiture, I'd probably want something in a 85-135 mm FL.

Single lens solution. A compromise could be a 24-105 f4, or 24-240.

These may not offer as much bokeh for portraits, but in a pinch would work. If you want maximum results this is more likely a 2 lens endeavor.

Re: best mirrorless landscape/portrait lens.

Tronhard — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 02:10:46 GMT

First, we come to the question do you want to have zoom lenses or primes?
Conventional wisdom would suggest that primes will have a smaller f/stop value - thus allow a shallower DoF and work in lower light, and may be sharper. Others argue that the difference is now much narrower than traditionally, and there is a benefit to having the ability to zoom for composition.
Thus, you are looking at two lens types. My point is that there is no definitive answer, but if you would like to narrow the field a bit by indicating if you prefer zooms or primes that might help us.

With landscape and portraiture you are looking at two very divergent contexts. Given you have an R5, I assume you are prepared to budget a bit in your optics, considering they represent the more critical investment.

Most people shooting landscapes will go for a fairly wide angle lens and a medium to high f/stop value to get it all in focus. My personal favourite is the RF 14-35L f/4 IS lens. Beautiful lens, weather sealed, small, light, stabilized, constant aperture, and takes a standard 77mm filter - which is great for CPL and ND filters . The zoom range gives one a lot to play with. Note that like many new lenses, this uses a combination of optical and computational photography to achieve outstanding results in a compact, light and affordable format. This is essentially a situation where dedicated cameras are finally catching up with cell phones in that respect. The image correction is done in-camera for composing and for JPG files, while it will be done to RAW files as they import to PP software like Photoshop and Lightroom. The image look absolutely fine after lens corrections.

For portraiture, a moderate telephoto >= 85mm, up to say 200mm, with a very wide aperture, thus small f/stop value would be favoured. A favourite for prime users is the RF 100mm f/2.8 L MACRO IS USM, or in zooms the RF24-105 L IS USM f/4 or f/2.8 variants. If you want longer reach then the RF 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM would also be an interesting unit to consider.

I agree with Rick that if you want just one lens to cover the lot, the RF 24-240 IS USM super zoom is an amazing piece of kit. I have it and love it for its flexibility and good results. Absolutely, it does have the wide aperture of the more restricted L zooms or primes, but as you zoom out your DoF narrows, so it rather counterbalances the increasing f/stop value. This lens too uses computational photography to get great results at a reasonable price and light weight. One benefit of this method is that such lenses can be updated using firmware, which is rather brilliant.

Re: best mirrorless landscape/portrait lens.

Waddizzle — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 09:47:02 GMT

I use a 70-200mm f/2.8 for landscape and portraits. I am not a fan of how ultra wide angle lenses look on landscapes. They make everything look so much farther away than what they are. I’ll use the 70-200 to capture a panoramic shot when I need a wide angle view.

Re: best mirrorless landscape/portrait lens.

ebiggs1 — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 16:07:59 GMT

"what is the best mirrorless landscape/portrait lens."

This is a two edged question let's do the first part first.

"I use a 70-200mm f/2.8 for ~~landscape and~~ portraits"

So do I and a lot of my professional buds have found this out like I did years ago. It has all the best FL for portraits.

"I use a 70-200mm f/2.8 for landscape ~~and portraits"~~

Every and any lens can be and is a landscape lens. A 600mm or even an 800mm super tele is a landscape lens if you are taking a landscape of the Moon. The bottom line here is, how far are you from the "landscape"? Most folks can't get back far enough so they like wider FL like a 28mm or 20mm etc., lens. This is the reason the ubiquitous 18-55mm FL was chosen to ship with hundreds of thousands of Rebels. Still today anything approaching that FL range on crop cameras makes a good beginning, on a FF the 24-70mm. It has all the best FL for landscapes.