I use my wide-angle lens more than any other lens in my bag. Something about that look I love for landscapes and even shooting environmental portraits.
I’ve been shooting Nikon for over a decade and owned or tried just about everything out there. The best wide-angle lens right now isn’t even a Nikon, it’s the Tamron 17-35 f/2.8-4. The combination of excellent optics, ease of use, and affordability make it an easy choice.
As a Nikon shooter, I’ve tried a lot of different lenses and there are a lot of great choices, so to help you make an educated decision based on your specific needs and budget, I’ve broken down the rest of the options here as well.
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Tamron 17-35mm f/2.8-4 Di OSD
Ultimate wide angle workhorse at an affordable price
This lens is the ultimate wide-angle workhorse at an affordable price. I use it every time I’m out shooting landscapes.
I can’t say enough good things about this lens. I have been using it for over a year now and it remains my go-to lens for wide-angle photography.
The center of the lens is tack sharp throughout the zoom range and aperture range. It also has enough resolution that you can use it with the highest megapixel Nikon cameras such as the 45.7 megapixel Z7ii or D850.
So long as you don’t need a constant f/2.8 aperture, this is the perfect lens to keep in your bag at all times since it doesn’t take up too much space or weigh too much.
Probably my favorite part about this lens is how small and light it is compared to other lenses in this class. For comparison, the popular Nikon 16-35mm f/4 is 24.0 oz compared to this lens’s 16.2 oz. Plus, you get the wider f/2.8 aperture at the wide end with this lens. At 3.5 in. (90mm) long, it sits nicely in the bag without taking up too much space.
If you want a lens to shoot stars at night, you may want to go with a wider maximum aperture and look at one of these Nikon astrophotography lenses.
When the lens is wide open, there is a very slight softness around the edges but it is hardly noticeable. Stopping down to around f/5.6 to f/8 will clear that up and give you impeccable image quality.
Overall, the combination of image quality, compactness, lightweight, and affordable price make this the wide-angle lens I would recommend to any Nikon shooter.
I am a firm believer that good photography can be created with any price range of gear.
So to help you find the right wide-angle lens at the price range you’re comfortable with, I’ve included a budget-friendly pick.
Tokina 17-35 f/4 Pro FX
For the budget conscious, this Tokina lens is a great entry point into the world of wide-angle photography at a very inexpensive price point.
Tokina lenses have been around for many years. While Tamron and Sigma have upped their lenses to a similar price range as the big camera brands, Tokina has continued to be a good quality budget lens company.
The Tokina 17-35 f/4 Pro FX Lens is a great all-around use wide-angle lens and you can get it for less than half the price of the Tamron that tops this list.17-55mm is a great wide-angle zoom range. It can cover a nice variety of situations from landscapes to wide-angle portraits.
As far as image quality goes…you are going to settle for some compromises here because of the lower price.
Center of the frame sharpness is pretty good, but you are going to see some softness as you work out towards the edge of the frame. It’s not something that most people viewing your images will even notice, but it’s there. The edge softness becomes more pronounced at higher focal lengths but you can get back some sharpness by stopping down to f/5.6 or f/8.
From a practical standpoint, this isn’t that big of a problem since you’ll be shooting at higher apertures for landscapes and edge sharpness is less of an issue when shooting portrait images.
Tokina also makes a 16-28mm f/2.8 which will give you a little bit better image quality, but its also more expensive, and at that point, you’re getting close to the price of the Tamron above which is far superior in image quality, so I don’t really recommend the Tokina 16-28mm.
Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 S
Skip the very expensive 14-24mm version and go with this 14-30mm f/4 lens for excellent image quality and the ability to use regular filters as well as a much smaller and lighter size that is great for long hikes.
The new Nikon Z mount is all about improving image quality and this lens takes full advantage of that.
This is one of the sharpest lenses I’ve ever used and even on the 45.7 megapixel Z7ii it is able to resolve every pixel sharply. So the image quality is excellent.
What really excites me about this lens is the usability of it. As far as I can tell from my research, it is currently the only 14mm zoom that takes “normal” 82mm filters. That’s a big deal for me since I use filters often for shooting landscapes.
The lens is also very light and compact for one with a 14mm wide focal length. It weighs in at 17.1 oz. (485 g) and measures 3.5 in. (89 mm) in diameter and 3.3 in. (85 mm) in length. That’s about the same weight as the Tamron above but more compact.
Nikon also has a 14-24mm f/2.8 model. But similar to the DSLR version of that lens…while the image quality is amazing, there are some drawbacks. It is double the price of the 14-30mm and while it does accept filters on the front, you need 112mm filters.
The differences in image quality between the f/4 and the f/2.8 lenses are minimal so unless you shoot night skies and absolutely need that wide f/2.8 max aperture, save yourself over $1000 and go for the 14-30mm f/4 lens.