How to Use a Wide Angle
Lens
By: Roman Zolin
Perspective
One of the most interesting features of wide-angle
lens is the capability to stretch perspective. What
do I mean by that? I mean that when you look through
a wide-angle lens, it seems that the distance
between objects has extended. The objects that were
not so distant could appear too far away. And the
proportion of objects dramatically increases, so the
one that close to the camera look enormous, but
those, which are father away almost disappear in the
distance.
The wider the angle the shorter and stronger the
difference in the sizes of the elements in the
photograph. If we think of two parallel lines that
stretch out away from the camera, these two lines
will visibly merge at some point. This is a point,
which I would call perceptive vanish point for wide
angle lens. What do I mean by that? Well,
theoretically at this point and beyond (at this
distance from the focal plane) all elements would be
represented as a dot or not visible at all. For
normal lens (of in reality) this vanishing point is
somewhat farther from the focal plane then for wide
angle lens.
What do those two vanishing points mean (for normal
and wide angle lens)? They mean that the wide angle
lens reduce the actual (visible) distance to the
vanishing point. Which results that our brain, when
judging the distance and sizes of the objects in the
photograph, assumes that the distance to the
vanishing point is the same as with normal lens
(i.e. reality). But this assumption makes it to
stretch the perspective recorded in the image to the
normal one.
Making it big
Let's take for example a simple situation, where we
have two kids, which should be of similar size. The
girl is playing closer to the camera while the boy
is watching several feet farther. We make a shot
with a wide angle lens. What effect the lens would
bring here? First of all compare the size of the
girl and the boy. The boy probably would be
two-three times smaller than the girl, while in
reality their somewhat of the same height. OK, the
perspective added its effect and make the boy seem
smaller. But in the reality the boy is not that far
away. On the photograph I it could seem as 15-20
feet (5-7 meters) between the boy and the girl,
actually only a few feet separated them at that
moment. So here you see the first effect of the wide
angle lens - stretching perspective.
And I should say that there is additional benefit
for a photographer in this. Because the girl appear
to be bigger than the boy she becomes the main
subject without any doubts or additional thinking,
we just assume it by judging the relative sizes of
subjects/objects in the frame. It means that with
wide angle lens its much easier to focus viewer's
attention on the primary subject - the size matters.
If we consider the relative sizes and how it reduces
the significance of the objects/subjects that
farther away from the camera, we can say that the
other elements of the photograph (not the primary
one) easily become the background for our primary
subject. And this trail of thought leads me to a
conclusion that by using wide angle lens we can
separate the subject from the rest of stuff in the
image by making all other elements to become the
background. It looks like we push all other elements
farther away from the camera and pull the subject
much closer to the camera.
Though there is one side thought, it may not always
be possible to get close to the subject and enforce
that distance between elements in the photograph. It
only works when you are very close to the subject,
otherwise the use of wide angle lens will have the
opposite effect - it will blend your subject in with
the rest of the elements of the photograph. And
sometimes it may even worsen things, such that some
insignificant object on front plane becomes almost
huge and draws a lot of unwanted attention. That's
why there are limits to this techniqe, as always.
Seeing a lot
So, by pushing the subject farther from the camera
we blend it with background. But what if we need to
include a lot of the scene? What if there is no
single subject? Let's say there is a vista or a big
room full of people (some kind of event) and we want
to get everything into the frame. Well, again the
wide angle lens could be your choice, because the
name of that range says it all. Wide angle means
that you can fit a lot of stuff into the image.
Though when you put a lot of stuff into the image
everything becomes small and less significant. And
then the emphasis shifts to the overall "wow
effect". When the quantity of elements and their
relation to each other play more importance, than
qualities of a single element, this mix of many
elements becomes the primary subject.
Wide angle lens help when there is a limited space
and you need to jam a big subject into the picture.
One of the examples is the interior design
photography. Let's say we have an assignment to take
photographs of a kitchen, which I had some time ago.
In my case I had plenty of room to move around, the
kitchen was for a show, not for real purposes. But
there are times when the space is a great issue,
then the only choice is to use a wide angle lens, if
you are not focusing on the details and need the
overall view of the room.
Dynamics and distortion
Sometime ago I've taken a shot of a man sitting on a
car. It was taken with "a hidden camera", I just
pointed the camera at the man from the waist level
at pressed the shutter. The lens, of course, was the
wide angle one - at its widest angle. The legs of
the man were closest to the camera, and the head is
most distant. How was it represented in the
photographs? My first answer would be the
disproportion of the man, his legs seem much bigger
in relation to his whole body than a person usually
would have. That is one of the the distortion
effects which I wanted to point out. It relates to
the "Making it big" issue covered earlier in this
article. The body parts of the man, which are closer
to the camera (in our case those are the legs)
appear to be bigger than his other limbs, which are
farther away. Such a distortion sometime may add a
funny look to a portrait or highlight specific
features of the subject. You probably have seen many
images taken with a fish eye lens - the lens that
cover 180 degrees and with most distortions. The
first example that comes to my mind is a picture of
a dog, which is sniffing the camera. The nose of the
dog has the size of the dog's head, which makes it
so funny.
The other effect of distortion is that straight
lines that cross the frame may appear not that
straight. The farther from the image center the line
crosses the frame the more it will be bent by the
optics. Sometimes with fish eye lens it seems like a
couple of lines create a circle around the lens.
That's how strongly a distortion can affect the
scene in the photograph.
But we have not talked about the dynamics. Where are
the dynamics in the photograph created with a wide
angle lens? In my mind the dynamics in all aspects
described above: the stretch of perspective, the
differences of the subjects, which are on different
distances from the camera, the unreal proportions of
known shapes and forms and the distortion of the
straight lines (or any other usual and known graphic
elements).
Getting personal
Among those technical aspects of the wide angle
lens, there is one, which adds its own appeal to me.
Considering that you are using the lens to take
photographs of a person, you are bound to come
closer to the subject. Coming closer, huh? It means
that most probably the person would notice you and
your camera, which will almost touch him or her. And
if your are noticed by the subject, then the
attention will be turned at you and all the
activities or interests that kept that person busy
and made him/her interesting for you will be
forgotten for a little while. And the scene, which
you were hunting for, is gone. It seems like you are
loosing the advantage of a candid shot and are left
with a posed one.
Not at all, if you stick just for a few more minutes
and spend some time around the subject, the person
would be bored with you and shift his attention to
some other, more interesting activities or objects.
That's the moment we have been waiting for - we are
close and unnoticed. And the time which we spent
waiting for that we made an invisible connection
with the subject. We learned about some personal
side and probably made some impressions and
conclusions. All those small things count, they will
appear in the photograph, it will create that
personal touch and add the mood to the photograph,
which is based on the photographer's understanding
and impression of the subject. I consider this
side-effect of the wide angle lens one of the
important aspects. And even if the subject is a
simple rock laying in the grass, we will have to pay
more attention to the rock and by doing so we cannot
escape a deeper impression. This personal connection
makes as think more about what subject we select to
include into the frame and what we know about it,
what we want to express, which is the core of
photography.
Technical stuff
There are a few technical things that you may need
to know when using the wide-angle lens. Here is the
short description of those (I am not that much into
technicalities):
Lens Hood and Flare - because the lens covers
a very wide area there is a great chance that the
sun could mess with your image. To overcome this
small problem most of the lens are supplied with a
lens hood. The hood creates a protection from the
sun, but there are two things that collide: the lens
is created to allow view as much as possible and the
hood tries to provide a protection from the sun.
These two concept are somewhat contradictory, so one
of them should give in, and that's why the hood for
wide angle lens is not such a good protection after
all. So, it's your job to watch for the flare and it
may be useful to use some other objects (such as a
sheet of black card) to protect the lens from the
sun rays.
Polarizer - with polarizer you have two
concerns. One of them is that the simple thickness
of the metallic rim around the glass may cause
vignetting. The other one is the unevenness of the
effect, which is partially depends on the all those
various reflection angles that these lens will let
through. If we take for example the sky, the best
effect will be when the sun and the camera are at 90
degrees to each other. Though the lens cover a lot
more of other angles, where the angles will vary
from 45 to 135 degrees. As well I noticed that even
without the polarizer the lens saturates the sky
more than any other type of lens.
Depth of Field - the design of the wide angle
lens and its optical constraints make the DOF wider
than with any other lens. It's very hard (almost
impossible) to have a shallow DOF with such lens, so
look for other ways to simplify background (such as
framing).
Sharpness - if you have a wide angle zoom
lens than you may notice slighter less sharpness at
the very wide angle, especially with the widest
aperture. That's another design constraint, which
very hard to avoid as I understand (almost any wide
angle zoom lens has this drawback, even the best
lens).
Vignetting - some lens (especially of cheaper
price range) may have dimness in corners at the
widest angles and apertures. You may want to check
this issue before buying the lens.
Roman Zolin Friendly photography with a smile
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http://www.romanzolin.com for more photography
and photoshop related articles.
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