Category Archives: Astrophotography

As an amateur astrophotographer will tell you, you just don’t get to capture the really interesting objects without spending a ton of money on some decent pieces of kit. Telescope aside, there really is a surprising amount of complexity, weight, and associated costs with the telescope mount alone, let alone one that is capable of any sort of programmable tracking. [Alan (Jialiang) Zhao] clearly wanted to up their game, and having suffered some of the shortcomings of their Sky-Watcher HEQ-5 pro Equatorial mount decided to go ahead and build an open-source mount, Alkaid, which hopefully works a bit better for them.

In simple terms, the difficulty of photographing an extremely dim, distant object (or one that is larger but diffuse) is that the camera sensor needs to spend a significant amount of time signal-averaging, to gather enough light for anything to be seen at all, through the noise. But, this ball of rock we sit on is rotating constantly, so the only solution is to track the object of interest, to compensate. This is referred to as equatorial tracking, and allows the rotation of the Earth to be compensated for during a long exposure.

The design of each of the two axes revolves (sorry!) around the use of a NEMA-17 stepper motor with a 27:1 planetary gearbox, driving into a harmonic reducer gearbox. Harmonic drives (aka strain wave drives) are pretty neat, working on the principle of a fixed, but circularly distorting ring gear that transmits torque from the inside surface to the outside, with almost no backlash. They are expensive parts, but for a super smooth movement, this is what you want. The huge output torque they allow, meant that [Alan] was able to build a mount for a heavy telescope without any counterbalances. Structurally, the whole thing is constructed from 10 mm thick aluminium plates that were cut with a waterjet and subsequently milled to finish.

On the electronics side, a custom PCB was produced, with a pair of TMC2130-based stepper drivers, controlled by a teensy 4.0. The simple design was constructed with Eagle PCB, and can be found on the Alkaid project GitHub, together with details of the frame and a suitable copy of the OnStep telescope controller firmware. Some 3D-printed side panels hold the electronics in place and box-in the internals giving the mount a tidy. kind of industrial look. One important metric for any such mount, is the total weight, which [Alan] reports as being around 5.5 kg which is less than half that of an HEQ-5 mount, without its counterbalances. Hopefully, it is heavy enough to dampen out any vibrations transmitted from the tripod, but testing will prove that one way or the other.

Too complex? Not enough time to build? How about a barn-door tracking mount? We’ve also seen a Raspberry Pi-based star tracker featured as part of the 2016 Hackaday Prize.

Thanks to [Buckarooooo] for the tip!

There is an easy way to increase the performance of PixInsight by optimising the swap file storage. I’ll explain a bit more about what it is and what it does, along with my personal tests and results in this article.
For those who are just interested in the improvement I’ll start with the short instruction what you’ll need to do.

Add Swap storage directories

In PixInsight, go to Edit -> Global Preferences. This will open up the Preferences window. In this window go to ‘Directories and Network’. You’ll see a window similar to the one shown below:

On the right hand side of the window you see a list of ‘Swap storage directories’. By default it will probably show something like ‘/tmp’. Now click the ‘Add’ button and add another (or the same!) directory. When clicking ‘Add’ it will open up the file browser where you can select a temp directory.
Repeat this a few times until you have between 4 and 8 directories listed.
Now your done!

If you’d like to understand what you just did and learn how you can further improve the swap performance, just read on below.

Swap file storage

PixInsight will use a lot of so called ‘swap storage’. This means that PixInsight will write temporary data to the disk of your computer and retrieve it again while executing certain processes. It’s often called an extension of the RAM memory that will be used, but it is important to realise that PixInsight will use the swap storage even when RAM memory is still available.
Without knowing anything else we can already appreciate the performance improvement you’ll get in PixInsight if you use fast disk drives like SSD or maybe even M2 drives; the faster PixInsight can write and read from the swap file storage, the faster it can execute the processes. The speed involved here is what we call ‘disk I/O’ or disk Input/Output. In some scenarios the processor might actually be waiting for some data to be retrieved from the swap storage. In such a case we are bottlenecked by the I/O speed of the disk. But what if we would have more disks available? In that case we could use parallel I/O operations to optimise the bandwith.
But even if you have only 1 disk available PixInsight will still be able to benefit in some cases from parallel I/O operations to the same disk. You could imagine scenarios where PI can write the output while retrieving some other data from the swap storage. This is especially the case when used with fast disks like SSD.
In order for PixInsight to be able to perform this parallel I/O operations, we simply need to add more swap storage folders like explained above.

RAM disk

Remember I mentioned earlier that PixInsight will use swap storage even if there is still RAM available. If you have enough room left in your RAM capacity you can make a so called ‘RAM disk’. This is a temporary disk you can create by using some of the RAM memory. Please remember that as soon as this disk is ejected or if you reboot or turn off your computer all stored files in this RAM disk will be gone! For swap file storage this is not a problem, but please do not mistake this for a regular disk.
On MacOS you can simply download this handy tool: RAM Disk Creator from Florian Bogner.
On Windows there are multiple programs available to do this, both free and paid software. This article has a benchmark of some of those applications to get you started.
Once you created the RAM disk you can simply access it like any other storage device. In order to enable PixInsight to use the RAM disk as swap storage you can simply add a folder on the RAM disk to the list of swap storage directories under Global Preferences. (as explained at the start of this article)

Using SSD and RAM disk simultaneously as swap file storage

You might be tempted to just use RAM disk as swap file storage because of the speed of a RAM disk versus an SSD device. However, you’ll need to make sure PixInsight will have enough swap storage available or it will start throwing errors. To prevent this you can simply add one folder from your regular storage in addition to the RAM disk. This will both enable parallel I/O operations and makes sure there is enough room for the swap files.

Testing results of parallel swap file storage

I ran the PixInsight benchmark with different swap file storage setups to check the impact of different configurations.
I ran the benchmark 5 times for each scenario and used the average results to determine the improvements compared to the default setup with only 1 entry under swap file storage which is 1 folder on a SSD in my case.
First I compared using different number of entries on the same SSD:

As you can see the actual increase for the Total score of the benchmark is not that great. As expected the CPU score isn’t impacted. However, when we check the improvement for the swap score we get this result:

I was somewhat surprised by the jump in performance when using 8 entries in stead of 6 or 10, but I was able to reproduce this and with 5 measurements per configuration I got a stable result within the same range every time.

No, let’s look what the performance increase is when we add a RAM disk in different configurations.
I have 16GB of RAM available on this system and noticed the total load almost never came above 8GB when running the benchmark. So I created a RAM disk of 8GB. However, the results were pretty bad! Apparently I had to little RAM left for the benchmark and the results were worse than before.
Next try: 6GB. This worked only if I also added a folder on the SSD or else I would run into disk space errors.
The 6GB did show improvement, but not as much as the 4GB did! This was surprising since the system monitor didn’t show loads that high for PixInsight, but apparently it performed better with 12GB RAM still available.
I got the biggest improvement when using 2 folders on the RAM disk of 4GB and 1 folder on the SSD.
See the graphs below for the actual results:

65% increase for the Swap score! That’s quite significance I’d say

So everyone that has a system with 16GB or more should seriously consider using a RAM disk for swap storage to improve the performance of PixInsight.

Free up RAM. (kill Chrome!)

If you are anything like me you probably have a ton of other applications and browser tabs open while working in PixInsight. Some necessary to read some tutorials and check examples, others not so necessary like watching YouTube while waiting for some PixInsight processes to finish. However, it can help your performance greatly if you kill most (unnecessary) programs while working in PixInsight. Especially Chrome is a notorious ‘RAM hogger’, so close it completely for better PixInsight performance!

Aunque inicialmente las constelaciones eran figuras imaginarias que unían unas estrellas con otras, con el paso del tiempo, han dado lugar a las diferentes regiones delimitadas por fronteras igualmente imaginarias que agrupan no solo estrellas sino también objetos de cielo profundo como galaxias y cúmulos.

Dependiendo de la latitud geográfica en la que nos encontremos tenemos acceso a una parte de la esfera celeste quedando oculta por nuestro propio planeta la otra parte. De esta manera los observadores boreales tienen acceso a las constelaciones del hemisferio norte y, si su latitud no es muy elevada, a algunas pocas del hemisferio sur que van turnándose con el paso de los meses. Las constelaciones más meridionales o próximas al polo sur celeste nos estarán vetadas por completo desde los cielos boreales.

A continuación vamos a nombrar las constelaciones que se encuentran ubicadas en el hemisferio norte.

Constelaciones boreales

• Andrómeda: Es una de las constelaciones más grandes con 722 grados cuadrados.
• Aries: Constelación zodiacal. Abarca 441 grados cuadrados. No incluye ningún objeto Messier.
• Casiopea: Constelación circumpolar. Muy reconocible por su forma de «W»
• Orión: Es una constelación reconocida mundialmente por su forma y sus estrellas brillantes.
• Perseo: Famosa por encontrarse en ella el radiante de las Perseidas.
• Piscis: Constelación zodiacal. Abarca 889 grados cuadrados y el mejor mes para verla es noviembre.
• Tauro: Constelación zodiacal muy característica por su forma de «V» y el cúmulo de las Híades.
• Triángulo: Pequeña constelación que abarca 131 grados cuadrados.
• Auriga: Forma un pentágono de estrellas brillantes muy reconocibles. Abarca 3 objetos Messier.
• Camelopardalis: o Jirafa, abarca 757 grados cuadrados.
• Cáncer: Constelación zodiacal con una característica forma de cangrejo.
• Can Menor: Abarca 183 grados cuadrados y 19 objetos NGC.
• Géminis: Constelación zodiacal. Abarca 513 grados cuadrados y 1 objeto Messier así como 67 NGC.
• Leo: Constelación zodiacal muy reconocible y de las más grandes por sus galaxias.
• Leo Menor: Una de las más pequeñas, introducida por Johannes Hevelius en 1687.
• Lince: Una de las más complicadas de observar porque es muy débil.
• Monoceros: o Unicornio. Abarca 481 grados cuadrados, 1 objeto Messier y 58 NGC.
• Osa Mayor: Constelación circumpolar muy reconocible que nos ayuda a encontrar el norte.
• Boyero: o Bootes incluye a la estrella Arturo, una de las más brillantes del cielo.
• Perros de caza: o Canes Venatici es una constelación mediana que abarca 5 objetos Messier.
• Coma Berenices: Es una constelación poco vistosa pero que abarca 8 objetos Messier y 329 NGC.
• Corona Boreal: Una pequeña constelación pero fácilmente identificable en el cielo.
• Dragón: Constelación circumpolar muy extensa aunque sin estrellas especialmente brillantes.
• Hércules: Una constelación muy extensa que aloja el famoso cúmulo del mismo nombre.
• Serpens: Está dividida en dos partes, Serpens Caput y Serpens Cauda.
• Osa Menor: Constelación circumpolar que aloja la estrella Polaris.
• Águila: Una constelación típica de las noches de verano en la que destaca su estrella Altair.
• Cefeo: Constelación circumpolar que aloja multitud de nebulosas oscuras.
• Cisne: Una extensa constelación que atraviesa la Vía Láctea en las noches de verano.
• Delfín: Pequeña constelación situada dentro del asterismo del Triángulo de Verano.
• Equuleus: o caballo es la constelación más pequeña del hemisferio norte.
• Lacerta: o lagarto es también una constelación pequeña y difícil de reconocer.
• Lira: Destaca en el cielo por su brillante estrella Vega y su famosísima Épsilon Lirae.
• Pegaso: Muy reconocible por su famoso «cuadrado» junto a Andrómeda.
• Flecha: Pequeña pero fácilmente identificable dentro del Triángulo de Verano.
• Vulpécula: o Zorra es también otra pequeña constelación con estrellas poco brillantes.

Finding yourself in the midst of planning an observing session somewhere remotely means you’re already aware on the amount of equipment and checklists that you need to prepare. It is very easy to forget something that would ruin your excitement once you’re on site and realize you’re missing a cable, or other important gadgets.

To make things worse, with today’s technology and computers you also have to remember even more stuff. Charging the laptop to full battery, bring your cell phone, etc.

For PrimaLuceLab’s Eagle owners (astronomy dedicated mini PC), there’s one more caveat to be aware of. And that is namely the setting under EAGLE manager module. Supposedly you don’t have access to an HDMI monitor, or mouse or keyboard to enter in the ongoing Windows session, and for some odd reason your last hotspot settings aren’t starting, there’s a great workaround.

By pressing Windows + R you can open your Run window and type “Shell:Startup”. That will open up your startup folder which executes every time you restart, startup Windows. In our case we will be adding a bat file to execute a command to easily switch on our hotspot for our EAGLE.

Right click within that folder and create a new text file. Inside the text file copy & paste the following command,

@echo off
timeout /t 120 /nobreak
powershell.exe -encodedCommand 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

Save the file as Hotspot.bat and you’re done!

The command above waits for 120 seconds before it enabled your hotspot and we do that while waiting for the Wi-Fi to connect from your cell phone (provided your have hotspot covered by your account wireless provider).

The encoded portion of the command can be found here

For Windows 10 you’ll need to allow PowerShell script execution. That is done by enabling the developer mode from Windows Settings.

Looking at the vibrant colors and laser precision of many astrophotographs, it’s hard not to see the images as art. But according to astrophotographer and Door Peninsula Astronomical Society (DPAS) member John Lyon, the process of creating them is more analogous to science.

And that process is far from easy. Astrophotography requires long exposures because the longer the exposure time, the more detail the camera sensor can capture and the less visual noise will be seen. Long exposures require slow shutter speeds, so the camera sensor is exposed for a significant amount of time. 

“You’re talking about anywhere between 30 seconds to 10 minutes,” Lyon said.

With long exposures, anything that moves while the camera sensor is exposed will appear blurry in the final image. Combined with the rotation of the Earth, this makes the clear capture of astronomical objects difficult, according to DPAS vice president Tom Gwilym. The telescope itself has to be in constant motion to track the object it’s trying to take a picture of. 

“If you don’t have tracking right, you get streaks,” he said. “Probably one of the biggest challenges of astrophotography is getting everything lined up and staying lined up.”

Another way to get clearer images is through stacking, or combining multiple images to reduce visual noise. In his recent picture of the Veil Nebula, for example, about six minutes’ worth of images were stacked.

“A dim object isn’t going to have full detail in one exposure, so you take another exposure, and then you stack them,” Gwilym said. “As it stacks, it fills in the gaps of [visual] noise, and it gets smoother and brighter and brings out more detail.”

Gwilym takes many of his pictures with DPAS’s new, advanced telescope: a $78,000 PlaneWave Instruments CDK400 observatory system housed in the Ray and Ruthie Stonecipher Astronomy Center in Sturgeon Bay. 

Lyon has an at-home setup.

“For scopes, I use everything from a telephoto lens up through over 200 mm focal length,” he said. “I’ve got a full spectrum of telescopes to use, depending on what I’m trying to observe at that time.”

Although astrophotography can be an expensive hobby, it doesn’t have to be. Gwilym’s initial equipment was a small, $500 telescope with built-in tracking capabilities, hooked up to a webcam that he purchased on eBay.

“I cut a Fujifilm 35 mm canister; I cut the end off and glued it on there,” he said, laughing.

And with this patchworked setup, Gwilym took pictures of Jupiter and Saturn.

“Looking back at it now, they’re pretty ugly,” he said. “What we do now is so much better, but you gotta start somewhere.”

Over the years, his skills have improved alongside his equipment, but some astronomical objects still pose a challenge. Moving objects, such as the International Space Station, have been especially difficult for Gwilym.

To track a moving object while also compensating for the Earth’s rotation, he uses two-line elements, or tracking data for Earth’s satellites.

“You can find software that’ll plot it automatically, so you put that into your telescope, and it’ll track it,” Gwilym said.

For Lyon, dim objects are the most challenging ones to capture – but Door County’s dark skies make it easier.
“I have a friend in De Pere who does some beautiful work, but [light in the sky has] limited what types of images you can take from home,” Lyon said.

He pursued astrophotography because it blended his interests in space and art. (He was a photographer here on Earth, too, but he describes the two types of photography as completely different pursuits.) 

When Lyon got started in astrophotography, his goal wasn’t to place his work in a gallery, but this fall, it was displayed in Algoma’s Ladybug Glass Studio & Gallery for the second year in a row. 

His background is in education, so he considers his photos on display to be a form of public outreach.

“Being able to show people the different objects that are in the night sky that are capable of being photographed was my main goal,” Lyon said. “Whether people think it’s art or not really doesn’t matter.”

Photographing the best landscapes calls for the best landscape lens. Can you take a good landscape photograph with the lens that came with your camera? For sure! Can you take a sensational one? Maybe. But you can increase your chance of success by using the right tool for the job. Focal length, aperture size, build quality and, of course, your budget all have their part to play. Not to mention your final intended publishing place – an Instagram post will have very different requirements to an enormous fine-art print.

We’ve carefully considered everything from all-rounders to landscape specialists, high-quality zoom lenses as well as dedicated, pro-grade primes. We’ve looked at optics that will fit the lens mounts of the biggest players out there, as well as a few that have multiple different mount options, so whether you’ve got a spectacular vista right on your doorstep or you’re looking for the perfect lens for that once-in-a-lifetime trip, you’ll find something here that suits.

READ NEXT: Best wildlife camera

---

Best lens for landscape photography: At a glance

---

How to choose the best landscape lens for you

What focal length landscape lens should I buy?

The million-millimetre question… Photographic lenses measure their focal length in millimetres, with a higher number meaning a more zoomed-in lens with a tighter field of view out of the end. So an ultrawide lens might have a focal length of around 15mm, while the kind of lens you see around the edge of a big sports event might have a focal length around the 400mm mark.

Many landscapes call for a lens with a broader field of view, which generally means a wider-angle lens and a shorter focal length. So a lens that kicks off at 15mm and only zooms in to, say, 35mm will make dramatic landscapes look expansive.

You need to factor in your camera’s sensor size too, as the smaller your camera’s sensor, the more your lens’ focal length will be multiplied. For example, cameras with a Micro Four Thirds sensor multiply every lens that’s attached to them by two, which means a 14mm lens will actually have a field of view equivalent to a focal length of 28mm. However, this doesn’t apply to full-frame cameras, as they don’t multiply the focal length of any lenses.

One thing to bear in mind is that ultrawide lenses give a fairly distinctive look to objects that aren’t miles away, on the horizon. And that might mean buildings with slightly bulging vertical lines, or distorted-looking people. The more specialist your lens’ focal length, the less you’ll be able to use it for general-purpose subjects.

All that said, landscape photography isn’t just about hills and distant mountains – good landscape photography can make the most of intricate detail, so you should definitely be prepared to consider standard focal length zooms (roughly in the 20-100mm range), as well as even longer lenses.

READ NEXT: The best travel tripods

What aperture should a landscape lens have?

Lenses with larger apertures are generally more expensive and, because they allow more light to hit the sensor at once, more useful. A lens with a large aperture can let you shoot lower ISOs, which means less “noisy” images, or a faster shutter speed, which means steadier, less blurry images, or both at once.

However, photographs shot with a big aperture will also have shallower depth of field, which means less of your image will be in focus at once. There’s no hard and fast rule, but landscape photographs with lots in focus – shot with a smaller aperture – give their audiences more intricate detail to luxuriate in, so plenty of landscapes lenses shoot around the f/8-f/11 range, which means a lens’ maximum aperture size is irrelevant.

One thing to consider is that a sharp image with shallow depth of field is always better than a shaky image with lots of depth of field. So, if you’re expecting to shoot in wild environments with fading light, you might still benefit from a lens that lets you get at apertures of f/4 and larger.

Should I buy a weather-proofed lens?

To the uninitiated, the life of a landscape photographer looks pretty relaxing – head to a beautiful location, wait for sunset, snap a picture. In reality, high wind, driving rain and even occasional sandstorms are all occupational hazards. The tougher your gear is, the longer you’ll be able to leave it out in the open, in the hope you’ll catch the first few rays of light after a storm. Sometimes location photography is a war of attrition, and you don’t want your kit to give up first.

Should a landscape lens have image stabilisation?

Good landscape photographers always use a tripod, don’t they? So what’s the point of image stabilisation? If you’re really committed to shooting all of your images from a tripod, it’s true that paying extra for a lens with image stabilisation is unnecessary.

In the best-case scenario, your lens will detect that it’s mounted to a tripod and disable its stabilisation, while in the worst, it will go a bit haywire, as the gyroscope that drives stabilisation can get stuck in a feedback loop, resulting in poor-quality images.

Still, being able to run-and-gun is a huge advantage, particularly in rapidly changing light or poor weather, when setting up a tripod will result in getting wetter or colder than you’d like. In those situations you might still want to shoot using long shutter speeds, in which case a lens with image stabilisation could be a significant asset.

How much should I spend?

Good question! At the high end of the market, a good all-purpose lens that will shoot a decent landscape shot might set you back £1,500 – more if you’re after a current-generation, pro-grade lens for a mirrorless camera.

But there are plenty of lenses that are beautifully sharp at typical landscape apertures that cost way less, and you can expect quality budget options to start at around £500. While it’s possible to go a bit cheaper, you’ll find you have to start compromising. For example, apertures might not open as wide, which won’t matter too much for landscape photography, but will limit a lens’ appeal for more general-purpose work. You’ll probably also lose weather-sealing, and images might be a bit less sharp – not really an issue if you’re looking to be the next big thing on Instagram, but more problematic if you want to perform big crops on your images or get them printed.

A final thing to note is that lenses, and particularly pro-level glass, hold their value really well – much better than cameras – so you can think of it as an investment!

READ NEXT: Best lenses for portraits

The best lenses for landscape photography to buy in 2022

1. Canon RF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM: Best lens for general-purpose photography 

Price: £1,329 | Buy now from Amazon

The “L” in the name denotes Canon’s pro series of lenses, while the 24-105mm focal length has seen several generations of photographers deep into their careers. This RF-mount version is Canon’s best and sharpest yet, and might just be the best all-purpose lens full stop.

Of particular interest to landscape photographers is the fact that its 24mm focal length is practical, if not ultrawide, while the ability to zoom in 4.4x gives you the ability to shoot details as well. It also benefits from built-in image stabilisation which, in conjunction with the In-Body Image Stabilisation (IBIS) found in some of Canon’s high-end RF-mount cameras, will allow you to shoot sharp shots at much longer shutter speeds – Canon claims the lens’ image stabilisation will hold you steady for five stops longer than an unstabilised lens.

Internally, there are 18 lens elements in 14 groups, and while the 24-105mm is pretty sharp when you shoot it wide open at f/4, it’s extremely sharp when you stop it down a bit – easily good enough for enormous fine-art prints.

There are wider lenses, and there are faster lenses, but there aren’t many better all-rounders, particularly for the appealing price.

Key specs – Focal length: 24-105mm; Maximum aperture: f/4; Mount: Canon RF; Image stabilisation: Yes; Filter diameter: 77mm; Dimensions (LxD): 107.3 x 83.5mm; Weight: 830g

---

2. Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art: Best lens for nightscapes

Price: £1,399 | Buy now from Amazon

One of this photographer’s all-time favourite lenses, Sigma’s 14mm f/1.8 is part of the brand’s Art series – comparable to Canon’s L-series lenses or Nikon’s S-line range.

It’s optically superb, which is no small achievement given its fairly extreme specifications: 14mm is about as wide as you’ll get on a full-frame sensor, and f/1.8 is a particularly large aperture, yet the lens produces a gorgeous, rectilinear image with very little distortion. So for landscapes that don’t bend in the middle – including architectural photography – it’s a natural.

That large aperture has other advantages. Of course, you can stop it down for a bit more sharpness, but it offers some intriguing possibilities for photographers to shoot at night – combine it with a full-frame sensor and your camera will be positively drinking in light, which means lower ISOs and the potential for some really amazing wide-field astrophotography.

It’s got a pretty decent heft to it – it clocks in at nearly 1.2kg, which is heavy for a landscape lens – but it’s weather-sealed and, frankly, the weight offers a bit of reassurance that you’ll be able to head out on some adventures with it. Inside there are 16 elements in 11 groups, plus a nine-bladed aperture, which isn’t going to produce particularly spectacular bokeh, but at 14mm depth of field is never going to be terribly pronounced.

A final note in the Sigma 14mm Art’s favour is its compatibility with the wider market: if you own a camera with a Sony E-mount, Canon EF mount (or RF-mount with an adapter) or Nikon F mount (or Z-mount with an adapter), this lens will fit and is capable of amazing results.

Combined with a motorised star tracker, you’ve got one of the best astrophotography lenses on the market.

Key specs – Focal length: 14mm; Maximum aperture: f/1.8; Mount: Sigma SA, L, Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony E; Image stabilisation: No; Filter diameter: No filter possible; Dimensions (LxD): 127 x 97mm; Weight: 1,170g

---

3. Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 7‑14mm F2.8 PRO: Best lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras

Price: £960 | Buy now from Amazon

You’ll recall from our buying guide that owners of Micro Four Thirds cameras – which includes everything that Olympus offers, plus a number of Panasonic cameras, among others – need to multiply the focal length of every lens by two, because of the small sensor. For wildlife photographers this is a benefit – a 200mm lens becomes a 400mm lens – but there are drawbacks for landscape photographers, and you’ll need an extra wide optic to match relatively tight 35mm lenses. Still, with a widest focal length of 7mm (14mm in 35mm terms), the M.Zuiko ED 7-14mm f/2.8 Pro is an eminently practical lens for those shooting landscapes.

It’s a tough little customer – while it only weighs just over 500g, it’s still weather- and dust-sealed. And there’s some quality glass on display here: 14 elements in 11 groups, featuring Olympus’ ZERO lens coating. That’s an acronym standing for Zuiko Extra-low Reflection Optical, in case you were wondering.

It’s capable of some great results. It’s extremely wide-angle, and this, plus the large aperture, means that if you shoot at its widest focal length, with the aperture open to f/2.8, you’re going to need to correct some vignetting in post, though stopping down helps. Chromatic aberration is well controlled, although you’ll see a little if you shoot at f/2.8, but it’s nothing a little Photoshop can’t correct. It’s very sharp – shoot around f/5.6, if you can, and you’ll be rewarded with images that belie this lens’ affordable price and small size.

Key specs – Focal length: 7-14mm; Maximum aperture: f/2.8; Mount: Micro Four Thirds; Image stabilisation: No; Filter diameter: No filter possible; Dimensions (LxD): 105.8 x 78.9mm; Weight: 534g

---

4. Nikon NIKKOR Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S: Best lens for Nikon cameras

Price: £2,119 | Buy now from Amazon

This is the Z-mount version of the AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED, a lens that Nikon described as “legendary” which, for once, wasn’t just marketing hyperbole.

That means this lens has some big boots to fill, and we’re pleased to report it does so with aplomb that befits this lens’ high price. It’s ultrawide – 14mm is about as wide as you can get on a full-frame sensor without seeing goldfish bowl-style barrel distortion – while the 2x zoom ratio allows you a little compositional flexibility. The aperture opens as wide as f/2.8 – yes, bigger apertures are available on other lenses with similar focal lengths, but, while this might not be the brightest lens on the block, you could still use it to get into nightscape photography without astronomical (sorry) ISOs.

Handling is excellent; compared to its legendary predecessor, the Z 14-24mm’s 650g is positively featherweight. We appreciate a few pro-grade touches, such as the customisable function button and the OLED display on the top, which can be set to display current focal length, aperture or focus distance. Of these, focus distance is clearly the most useful, but it’s handy to have options. The final box ticked is weather and dust sealing, making this a lens that should be able to live a reasonably hard life.

Sharpness at the centre of the image is superb throughout this lens’ aperture range, though if you’re concerned about the corners – which drop off a little when shooting at f/2.8 – you’ll want to stop down a bit. If you do that, you’ll be rewarded by one of the very best wide-angle landscape lenses of all time.

Key specs – Focal length: 14-24mm; Maximum aperture: f/2.8; Mount: Nikon Z; Image stabilisation: No; Filter diameter: 112mm; Dimensions (LxD): 124.5 x 88.5mm; Weight: 650g