The Secret to Choosing the Right Lens for Landscape Photography

Landscape photography often brings a big questions: what focal length to use. This choice shapes how a scene feels: its depth, focus, and emotion. Picking the right lens isn’t about numbers on a barrel. It’s about how you want the viewer to see.

Coming to you from Toma Bonciu, this practical video explores how different focal lengths change your landscapes and which lenses earn a permanent place in your bag. Bonciu begins with wide angles like the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM. He explains that ultra-wide lenses between 17mm and 20mm capture everything, sometimes too much. You’ll struggle to frame a clean shot because every detail fights for attention. The foreground grows larger and more dominant while distant subjects shrink. This exaggeration can look dramatic but can also flatten the emotional focus of an image if you’re not careful. Bonciu warns beginners that these focal lengths aren’t forgiving. The wider you go, the more deliberate your composition must be.

He shows how closing the aperture can keep both foreground and background sharp.When using wide angles, Bonciu advises balancing light and shadow by standing in shadow and shooting toward the light can give a natural sense of depth. He encourages using every part of the frame so that nothing feels wasted or random.

The next stop is the 24mm focal length, a gentler introduction to wide shooting. Bonciu prefers it when working in cities or forests, where perspective matters but distortion can ruin vertical lines. He demonstrates how 24mm can create natural-looking diagonals through roads, tree lines, and paths that guide the eye without overemphasizing the foreground. In foggy forests, this focal length becomes essential. It’s wide enough to hold atmosphere and texture without overwhelming the composition. Using a graduated ND filter helps balance bright skies and dark ground, though Bonciu notes it’s more about personal rhythm than necessity.

At 35mm, the frame starts to feel human again. Bonciu describes this focal length as closer to how we see the world. It’s where he begins thinking about panoramas, keeping his camera vertical to add height and texture to stitched shots. Foregrounds become quieter, and the focus shifts to layers and light. With 35mm, Bonciu suggests working slightly farther from your subjects to hold detail front to back. It’s also his go-to for cities, where natural compression and moderate width make everything feel balanced.

When he reaches the 50mm to 105mm range, Bonciu moves into close-up territory. This range brings distant mountains near and plays with contrast between shadow and light to create depth. Planes flatten slightly, producing the cinematic look many landscape photographers chase. He splits this range into smaller steps (50 to 85mm, 85 to 105mm, and beyond) because each one compresses space differently. Above 105mm, and especially at 200mm, the lens behaves almost like a painter’s brush, isolating small details like a ridge, a patch of trees, or a slice of sunlight. Bonciu uses the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS II USM to compress distant landscapes and emphasize the scale of nature, like a tiny mountain hut dwarfed by cliffs.

His current setup combines three zooms: the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM, and the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS II USM. Together, they cover almost every scene, from tight city streets to sweeping alpine light. Bonciu rarely needs more than the 24-105mm, especially in forests, where flexibility outweighs reach. His takeaway is that every focal length has its purpose, and knowing that purpose helps you see better long before you click the shutter. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Bonciu.

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out our latest tutorial, "Photographing the World: Japan II - Discovering Hidden Gems with Elia Locardi!”