Advice and comments please

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Ian

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Some help please, comments and suggestions gratefully received.
For landscape photography I am using a Sony A7Riii and a 24-70 f2.8 G master lens.
The problem is I feel I would like a wider angle. An obvious choice is the 16-35mm f2.8 G master. But I am replicating some focal length if I keep the 24-70, which by the way, I love as a general purpose lens.
In addition I would like to try my hand at more night and Astro photography, although not to a huge extent.
The question is would I be better of with the 20mm f1.8 G lens from Sony?
On the plus side it’s faster, half the price and smaller & lighter than the 16-35. On the negative side it’s not as wide to the tune of 4 mm (does the team think that is significant?) and it’s a prime not a zoom lens.
I appreciate this is rather like asking how long is a piece of string but comments help me make an informed decision and perhaps consider things I have hitherto not done.
 
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As we often say....it depends.

For landscapes it depends on the size of the view you see before you. If it extends for miles a 24-70 would not be a problem and the zoom allows you to "get nearer" to an interesting feature that might look tiny when at 24mm. I've always used a zoom for landscapes for that very reason and used a 24-70mm frequently. I wouldn't miss 4mm on a sweeping landscape.

I'm currently using a 24-105mm lens on a Sony A7R3 and don't find the 24mm end to be a problem and the 105mm end gives me more scope to home in on distant objects if necessary.

Having said that what is your experience. What do you feel you are missing with the 24-70mm that something slightly wider would compensate for.
 
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Not sure if it's in the budget, but what about the Sony 12-24? Looks impressive.

As for the 16-35 vs the 20mm, as Dave says, it depends. Personally, I prefer a zoom for my landscape work. I want to get into position for the perspective that works best for the scene, then use the zoom to crop it to perfection. The problem with a prime is that you have to "zoom with your feet" which isn't zooming at all since every step changes the perspective.

Of course, that 20mm 1.8 would be nice for astro, but I've done all of mine with 2.8 glass and it's worked really well.

I think if money isn't an issue, I'd go with the 12-24, but otherwise the 16-35 is probably a good choice despite the overlap.
 
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Thanks to all, some helpful stuff here. The comment about what do I expect is probably the heart of the matter. For some time now I have felt that I wasn’t capturing the landscapes I wanted. By that I mean that you see things with your own eyes the vista can be…well good for the soul as they say. Hard to capture the grandeur of a scene and felt that a wider angle was required.
Steve’s logical suggestion is a good one but I was somewhat put off by suggestions that I have read that the 12-24 is really only for architectural and specialist cases like interior shots. Having said that there is no duplication in my existing focal length so despite the increased cost a case could be made that it is more cost effective in terms of £/$ per mm. I am pleased that Steve has had good astro results with f2.8. that’s encouraging. Sure if I was going to do a great deal of astro I would go for a faster lens, but I’m not. Difficult/impossible to get dark skies where I live, so it would only be occasional astro when travel restrictions are lifted.
 
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Some zoom also comes to the rescue when you suddenly find that you're up against a wall, river, fence or something else blocking the way. Your own expectations are exactly what you should work with to achieve the results you want. Eyes and cameras inevitably work differently on many occasions but they can be made to appear pretty close with the settings used. Depending on those settings and where the focus point is located.
 
I have a Sigma 14-24 f/2.8 Art lens for Nikon F mounts. It is a great lens for astro imho I assume it performs well with Sony also
 
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Ian said:
Some help please, comments and suggestions gratefully received.
For landscape photography I am using a Sony A7Riii and a 24-70 f2.8 G master lens.
The problem is I feel I would like a wider angle. An obvious choice is the 16-35mm f2.8 G master. But I am replicating some focal length if I keep the 24-70, which by the way, I love as a general purpose lens.
In addition I would like to try my hand at more night and Astro photography, although not to a huge extent.
The question is would I be better of with the 20mm f1.8 G lens from Sony?
On the plus side it’s faster, half the price and smaller & lighter than the 16-35. On the negative side it’s not as wide to the tune of 4 mm (does the team think that is significant?) and it’s a prime not a zoom lens.
I appreciate this is rather like asking how long is a piece of string but comments help me make an informed decision and perhaps consider things I have hitherto not done.
Click to expand...

Another shout for Samyang manual focus lenses. I have the 12mm f2 and 85mm f1.8 for my Fuji system and am impressed with the build quality, results and price.

Got the 85mm from ebay and the 12mm from MPB in Brighton. Both cost £200 each and they were like new. new they would have been around £320 so still great value. FF will be dearer of course.

Not tried Samyang on my Nikon system as I've been into photography for many years and have all of the lenses I want for the Nikon. When I was curious to see what all this mirrorless lark was about I got a Fuji XT-1 as it was so much like mt Pentax SV that I bought in 1964. I loved it so much I sold it within 6 months - but only as I fell over an XT-2 that had been bought as a second/backup camera, but never used! Still got that and in spite of my saying that i was not going to build a second system, i now has 6 lenses for it and have just added an XT-4 to the kit!!
 
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