Let's take a look at those lenses that don't drop a massive bomb on your bank account, and still give us some great value for money. These would all make great first lens purchases, ideal for anyone that is starting out in landscape photography. So let's get into it!
Wide Angle Lenses
The good old trusty wide angle lens, an absolute go to for any landscape photographer. This is something you would expect to see in any landscape photographers camera bag, its pretty much standard issue. Once you get one, you will see why straight away. Capturing huge areas with your camera is awesome, and being able to fit wide landscapes in to your photo is so useful for showing off the beauty of an area.
I mean we've probably all tried to do this on our phones at some point right? Sometimes you end up walking back so far to fit everything in it just doesn't work out. The answer is always a wide angle when capturing large landscapes. The image below was taken with a 18-55mm Canon EF S zoom lens.
This is a fantastic budget landscape lens (good for other genres of photography too) and I feel like this photo is a good example of it in action. I mean, you would struggle to fit the full reflection of the tree in the shot if you did have something more zoomed in.
If you don't shoot on Canon, don't worry here's a list of some incredible budget lenses you can buy with Nikon and Sony too. I have tried all of these lenses, and they're all brilliant value wide angle lenses.
All of these lenses have the flexibility to go to 55mm, which is a great added bonus and I'm sure you will find this very useful. It's also worth noting these are all native lenses. By native I mean Sony to Sony, Nikon to Nikon or Canon to Canon. It's always worth spending a little more and getting a lens that is optimised for your camera. Whilst Sigma, Tamron etc are good lenses. They aren't nearly as great as their counterpart native lenses.
Prime Lenses
A prime lens is a lens that doesn't zoom in or out, but has better quality, and can usually go to much lower f numbers than zoom lenses. I'm actually not going to recommend you to buy a prime lens if you are on a budget. The flexibility of zoom lenses adds so much to the value and it doesn't make much sense buying one prime lens that covers say 35mm and just 35mm when you can buy a lens for the same price that covers 18mm-55mm. Prime lenses are great, don't get me wrong. Just not so great for the bank account- I mean you'd probably have to buy a range of them really, if you are going prime. Or completely limit yourself to one focal length.
Telescopic Lenses
A telescopic lens would be next on the purchase list after you have a wide angle. I think if you want a good all round lens for landscape photography the wide angle is the one. However, that's not to say that tele lenses aren't incredible. They're fantastic to get in your kit bag but again they aren't cheap. I will be writing a blog about budget tele lenses soon so keep your eyes out for that. In the meantime enjoy your wide angle!
Thank you for reading! If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me via my facebook group here!