My Top Landscape Astro-Photography Lenses

Easily the most suggested lens to start your astro-photography journey with. It’s super wide on a full frame camera and provides acceptable image quality, especially considering the cost. It is a fully manual lens meaning no auto focus and a manual aperture ring allowing you to slide the aperture from f/2.8-f/22.

Price Ranges from $100-$250 on MPB

Lenstip Review

I’m hesitant to include this lens because there are some major drawbacks. The quality varies, so you spend time making sure you get a “Good Copy”. It’s wide enough to capture most landscapes and lets in a ton of light with its wide aperture. Like the lens above it’s manually operated which makes it affordable at this focal length. The Pros can out way the cons if you don’t pixel peep or don’t mind spending extra time in post correcting the Coma in the corners.

Price ranges from $200-$350 on MPB

Lenstip Review

Extending the focal range to 45mm complicates landscape astro-photography a bit, but the rewards can be stunning. Because its more zoomed in it requires us to plan our shots and move our shooting locations accordingly. It also requires a much quicker shutter speed to avoid star trails. So why would we choose a lens like this? Well simply put it enlarges the milky way relative to our foreground and creates a unique perspective thanks to “Lens Compression”

Price ranges from $130-$300 on MPB

Lenstip Review

Now we are getting into the professional grade prime lenses. This lens is HEAVY and for some that makes them look elsewhere. At this focal length though you’d be hard pressed to find a lens with a faster aperture or better image quality. It does display minor Coma at the corners of full frame, but its hardly noticeable.

Price ranges from $500-$1200 on MPB

Lenstip Review

I really like the focal range between 24-35 for milky way photography. I find it provides a good balance between the foreground and the milky way. With wider lenses the milky way tends to take more of a backseat. It’s incredibly difficult to find a lens between 20-30mm that doesn’t have some Coma in the corners and this one is no exception. I can live with the amount though.

Price ranges from $400-$600 on MPB

Lenstip Review

(NOTE This lens is for Crop sensor cameras only)

I’m not a huge fan of zooming lenses for astro-photography because you usually have to compromise aperture. On the wider range of this focal leangth the f/2.8 is not a problem, but as you zoom in you have to quicken your shutter speed resulting in even less light. Usually you’d want f/1.8 or faster when you start getting into that 20+mm full frame equivalent. That being said this is an excellent starter lens for astro if you have an APS-C camera.

Price ranges from $120-$220 on MPB

Lenstip Review

For full frames this is a great “all-in-one” lens for starting out. The famous Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 used to be champion for wide angle landscape and astro until this came along. It has the same drawbacks as I mentioned above, but if you’re looking to lessen the amount of lenses your lugging around while also avoiding money spent on multiple this is the one to get.

Price ranges from $400-$600 on MPB

Lenstip Review

I have no personal experience with these lenses as I do not own a Sony, but they certainly make me question that decision! I included them in this post because of how popular Sony has become in the photography market. All these lenses are sharp and have very little Coma.

If I only had to get one it would be the Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG DN (not to be confused with the DG HSM) Sigma seems to have corrected the Coma significantly and it would be able take the place of my 14mm and 28mm lessening the weight of my pack.

• The Sigma 14mm f/1.4 is around $1300 on MPB
• The Sigma 20mm DG DN f/1.4 is $600-$700 on MPB
• The Sony 35mm G Master is $900-$1100 on MPB