What is the most preferble lens for landscape photography?

I'm thinking of getting a Nikon D5300. I'm also intending to do some landscape photography as that is one of my photographic passion. Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to afford a full-frame sensor DSLR though it would be better for landscape photography. So I can only stick with crop sensor DSLRs and it should still be suitable for landscape photography.

The most important tool for photography, the lens. Which Nikon wide angle lens would you recommend? I'd say 800 dollars or under for the lens only is my budget. I'd try to keep the cost down for the lens but they say you shouldn't try to bargain on a lens as they largely impact on the quality of the photograph.

I'm planning to go out of the city lights to photography the milky way in the Australian outback.

If you are planning on shooting the Milky Way you want a lens capable of a wide aperture, because you need to keep the exposures to less than about 25 secs or so to avoid blurring from movement.

I'd recommend the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 - very sharp and reckoned to be better than Canon/Nikon equivalents.

For landscape photography a wide angle zoom is the business.

I have a Sigma 10-22mm f/4-5.6 - excellent lens for the money.

The Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 is also well regarded. The extra stop or 2 over the Sigma will be a help for your night shots but the 11-16 focal length range may be a little restricted for daylight landscapes - the reason I went for the wider range of the Sigma ( to reduce lens changing).

You might want to consider the Tamron SP 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) as well.

For good landscape photography as well as pictures of the Milky Way you also need to add a good tripod to your shopping list. I also suggest a circular polarizer filter for your landscapes.

You'll also want to maximize your Depth of Field (DOF) for your landscape photography. People usually assume that if you focus the lens to infinity and use an aperture of f/16 you'll achieve maximum DOF. That isn't necessarily true. Since there are only three factors that affect DOF (lens focal length, aperture and subject distance) at this site you can use the DOF Calculator to compute DOF for any combination of the three factors imaginable:
http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

I did a comparison of the Tamron 10-24mm and Tokina 11-16mm on a Nikon D5300. Since both lenses have a Distance Scale this is easy to do although auto focus must be OFF.

10mm @ f/16 with the distance scale at 3'-0'' your DOF will be from 9 inches to infinity. Anything from 9 inches in front of your camera to infinity will be in focus.

11mm @ f/16 with the distance scale at 3'-0'' your DOF will be from 11 inches to infinity. Anything from 11 inches in front of your camera to infinity will be in focus.

An ultra wide angle - such as a 10-20mm.

There are 3rd party ultra wides - it doesn't need to be a Nikon lens - if you want to keep the cost down Sigma and Tamron both offer ultra wide zooms that are excellent for landscape photography.

I use a Tamron 10-24mm - it's a very nice lens.

It depends entirely on your vision and budget.

My favorite landscape lens is my 70-200mm, because it allows me to isolate foreground subjects against the background.

My next favorite lens is my 16-35mm on a full frame camera. However, many new landscape photographer struggle to make decent images with a wide angle lens because they try to get too much in the frame.

Here is how I like to use a wide angle lens.