The best RF and EF lenses for landscape photography

Landscape photography can place you in some unforgiving climates – just ask wilderness photographer and Canon Ambassador Valtteri Hirvonen who regularly shoots in conditions as low as -35°C from his base in northern Finland. "The camera and lenses are tools for me, and I don't baby them, so weatherproofing is important," he says. "The most epic moments happen when the weather isn't perfect – quite the opposite. When there is a storm, when everyone else stays home, that's when the magical moments happen in nature. I want my gear to work in those situations."

Valtteri's go-to lens for landscape photography is the Canon RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS USM, but each of the lenses he owns brings something unique to the table, opening up fresh creative options. Here, Valtteri talks us through the contents of his lens kitbag, ranging from wide-angle lenses for capturing a broad field of view to telephoto lenses for isolating small details from a distance. Meanwhile, Mike, an expert on lens technology, explains why these lenses are particularly suited to the landscape genre.

For photographers using the EF mount, Mike recommends the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens. "This is a fantastic all-round lens with a very high reputation for its performance – it's regarded as one of the best of its kind from any manufacturer. The fast f/2.8 aperture makes it good for shooting in low light, and using the wide aperture also allows you to separate a subject from the background using differential focus. As it's an L-series lens, the weather-proofing is excellent. You can be confident that if you're working outdoors and the weather changes for the worse, it will work equally well.

"When designing the RF equivalent, our challenge was to build on the reputation of the EF lens and create an even better RF version for the next decade," continues Mike. "We had to push those boundaries even further."

The new RF lens mount has allowed a total redesign of the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM lens. "It's around 35% shorter and also lighter at only 1.07kg. In fact, the trinity of RF f/2.8 lenses take up less space than two EF equivalents in the kitbag," says Mike. "You've got the Dual Nano focusing, so focusing is even faster and can compensate for focus breathing. Image quality is maintained as the lens goes through the zoom range, there's closer focusing at 0.7m and the same degree of weather sealing as the EF version. Basically, the 70-200mm is the multi-function workhouse for any professional photographer, whatever the genre."

Mike also suggests the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM lens as an excellent medium-telephoto zoom choice for DSLR shooters. "Most landscape photographers will shoot using a tripod, but if you need to shoot handheld in the field, this lens has a 3.5-stop Image Stabilizer that helps keep pictures sharp," Mike explains. "As in other L-series lenses, the autofocus is powered by a ring-type USM motor that sits around the lens and drives the focusing very quickly. If you want to, you can manually override the autofocus instantly by touching the focusing ring. The lens has a fluorite coating that keeps it clean. If it rains, the water just runs off, without drying and forming hard droplets that affect the image quality."

"With a telephoto lens, you can find interesting compositions even in dull landscapes," adds Valtteri. "Finding little details, playing with light in the scene and focusing only on that. It's much harder to do that with a wide angle. Plus, it's much easier to include wildlife in the scene too."

With a similar functionality to the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, which Mike suggests for EF mount users looking for a super-telephoto landscape lens, the Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM also has a Zoom Touch Adjustment ring, while also offering quicker Nano USM focusing and an extra stop of stabilisation when used with a camera such as the Canon EOS R5 or EOS R6. "Here you have a lens that is the same size as the EF 100-400mm lens and a little lighter, yet offers more focal reach," says Mike. "When you're shooting with the EOS R5, it is possible to get sharp handheld images with shutter speeds as slow as 1/8 sec at the 500mm focal length.

"Many people would think of this focal range only for sports action and wildlife, but it's also great for landscapes," Mike continues. "It's about looking at landscapes in a different way, isolating areas or details such as groups of trees. One nice feature is the Zoom Touch Adjustment ring, which enables you to adjust tensioning for the zoom, according to the subject you're shooting. It also stops the focal length changing by accident if you tip the lens up or down."

Mike adds: "Generally in traditional landscapes, you're looking for greater depth of field using apertures such as f/8 or f/11. Paying the extra money for an f/2.8 aperture and carrying the extra weight isn't really beneficial. The selling point of the Canon RF 14-35mm F4L IS USM is its wider field of view and that it features UD [Ultra Low Dispersion] and aspherical elements designed to compensate for a whole host of lens aberrations typical with such a compact wide-angle lens."

Mike still highly recommends the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM lens for EF users wishing to add a wide-angle zoom to their kitbag. "It's very sharp at all focal lengths and is especially impressive at the 16mm setting when shooting with the lens wide open. Also, the ability to shoot at 16mm gives you the kind of width you don't normally get in a photograph. It's good for scenes with a lot of detail, such as cityscapes, and the broad field of view is similar to what we see with our eyes."

Featuring a customisable control ring for making exposure changes, the RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS STM also has a new optical design. "With DSLR design, any lens with a focal length wider than 40mm has to have a retro-focus design," says Mike. "The optical design is the inverse of EF lenses, with the largest lens element of the RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS STM at the rear. Coupled with the larger RF lens mount, this means light hits the sensor straighter and allows the quality at the corners of the image to be improved, with less distortion such as chromatic aberrations and light fall-off. Plus, you can get super close with a half-size magnification, which is ideal for capturing spider webs or dew."

For landscape photographers looking for a lightweight, affordable 35mm prime lens using the EF mount, Mike suggests the Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM, which features four-stops of image stabilisation, a fast f/2 maximum aperture for shooting when the light starts to drop and a short 0.24m minimum focusing distance for close-up focusing. "The Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM is a lovely little lens – compact and lightweight, yet still offering high performance," explains Mike. "This is one of my go-to lenses, its flexibility makes it the ideal travel lens to capture urban or conventional landscapes."