Best Lens for Real Estate and Landscape photography? Interior / Exterior residential homes.

[RealtorRichie]

I'm using a 6D.

[TCampbell]

Did you just ask this same question last week?

If you don't want to break the bank... the EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM

If you do want to break the bank... the TS-E 24mm f/3.5L and the TS-E 17mm f/4L

The TS-E lenses are manual focus only (there is no such thing as an auto-focusing tilt-shift lens... not by any manufacturer that I've ever encountered) and have a learning curve (especially to learn to control the "tilt" axis... the "shift" axis is fairly straight-forward to learn.

You will want a solid tripod.

I would suggest the 16-35mm f/4 (there's also an f/2.8 version, but you don't need this for landscape or realty because you're not trying to create a shallow depth of field.)  The tilt-shift lenses are advanced gear and require a bit of expertise to use... put that on your list of "sameday I might want one of these" but they should not be your first lenses.

[RexGig]

Canon has not introduced any new lenses since last week, when we discussed this same subject in detail, replying to your earlier post.

[ebiggs1]

Yes, how come you asked the very same question?  

"The tilt-shift lenses are advanced gear and require a bit of expertise to use... "

This is an understatement.  I strongly advise in not even considering its purchase.  The Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM Lens will do everything you want.

[RobertTheFat]

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@ebiggs1 wrote:

Yes, how come you asked the very same question?  

"The tilt-shift lenses are advanced gear and require a bit of expertise to use... "

This is an understatement.  I strongly advise in not even considering its purchase.  The Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM Lens will do everything you want.

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I dunno, Ernie. I once attended a lecture by Greg Heisler (q.v.), wherein he pronounced his T/S lens one of the most useful in his bag. And he's a portrait photographer! And one of my colleagues, the head of our Historical Commission (and by no means a professional photographer) uses his routinely to photograph historic buildings in the close quarters of our crowded city. I'll even confess that a T/S lens is on my own wish list, albeit not very high.

Let's put it this way: I'm not sure that suggesting that a real estate agent get a T/S is any more of a stretch than telling the Jazz Man to use Lightroom.

[ebiggs1]

Bob from Boston,

Mabe you are right.  We all had to start somewhere.  He can learn just as I did.  There is nothing special about me.  I assure you!  

[TCampbell]

The "shift" aspect is used to correct for that "leaning" look of buildings ... or the trapezoidal look of doors & windows when shooting interiors.  But the shift aspect of the lens is actually fairly easy to understand.  Anyone could pick that up fairly quickly.

The "tilt" aspect -- used to alter the plane of the depth of field... that's the tricky bit.  That takes some time to learn what it's doing, how it does it, and then LOTS and LOTS of practice.  That's the part that confuses most people.  But you don't actually have to use that part (just set a high focal ratio).  

I still DO NOT recommend these lenses for a beginner.  But then I don't recommend HDR for a beginner either.  Even understanding how to use Photoshop to perform perspective distortion correction using a "transform" tool may be a bit much for a beginner. 

I'm the sort that will say:  "Go learn the basics with this easy-to-use technique... it will get pretty good results without too much fuss.  But when you find that it's not getting the results that some world-famous photography is able to get... it may be because that photographer is using these more advanced tools.  Someday you too may want to use those more advanced tools."

I include it for completeness.  My opinion is that when I leave out some secret (even though it's advanced) then someone is going to beat themselves up trying to understand what they're doing wrong because they aren't able to acheive a result -- only because they didn't realize that a different tool is needed.

Tilt-Shift lenses are the ideal lens for architecture and landscape.  That's their sweet spot.  So if someone says "I want to architecture and landscape" I almost feel like I'm misleading them to omit that information.