A wide angle lens is an essential tool that you need for landscape photography. This lens has the ability to tell stories unlike any other lens, and it has allowed me to get really creative with my photos by giving me the ability to present objects much larger than they appear, or by simply allowing me to capture the entire scene that I’m wanting to photograph. However, this lens has to be used correctly in order to maximize its use, because otherwise it can ruin your photos if used incorrectly.
Here are specific rules to follow when using a wide angle lens:
LANDSCAPE
1) Find a Foreground- When you arrive at your location, first thing you need to look for is a foreground. This could be a tree trunk, rocks, flowers, bridges, anything that you can get close to and which has the view of the background behind it. Finding a foreground is the beginning of your story telling through your photography. Wide Angle lenses are notorious for making all objects in the distance seem very small, so if you tried to photograph a landscape of mountains without a foreground, all you are doing is making your mountains look tiny and insignificant. Therefore, finding a foreground is the first thing you should do.
2) Get REEEEALLY Close- Once you have found your foreground, you need to get really close to it. You will probably have to lie on the floor or get in the water to get within a foot of your subject, but the closer you get, the larger your foreground will appear and the more special and impactful your picture will get. If you try to take a photo of your foreground from a distance, your wide angle will minimize its size defeating the entire purpose.
3) Embrace the Distortion- Yes, yes, yes! This lens is your CREATIVE lens. Does the small rock in front of you look bigger than the mountain in the background? EXCELLENT. This is what is making your picture so special. Because you’re presenting a completely different way of seeing a scenery that probably thousands of people have walked through and have never had this type of perspective. While others are setting up their tripods and capturing the typical eye level photo with their zoom lens, you are on the ground getting dirty and most importantly, getting creative.
PORTRAITS
1) Switch Lens- If you are booked for a portrait session, don’t even bother bringing your wide angle. Simple reason is because a wide angle lens specializes in distortion which is awesome if you want to do creative landscape photography; However, people do not want to look distorted and deformed. If your subject is too close to the top, bottom or side- their features will get distorted. Look at the examples below with my son:
Notice the distortion happening with his forehead and his features. Unless you are the founder and creator of photoshop, you will have a hard time trying to correct those issues.
2) But this is the only lens I have on me! – The only way to get around the distortion is to perfectly centre your subject, which really limits your composition options for portraits.
STREET SHOTS
1) Fitting it all in- Before my wide angle, it would drive me crazy not being able to capture an entire building. I either had to crop the top or the bottom of the building. Same with architectural structures, bridges, monuments and so on. The wide angle lens allows you to get it all in your frame. Good bye cropped buildings!
2) Enclosed Locations- This is a great lens if you want to photograph a room or a small place where you don’t have the ability to back away to capture it all.
3) Cityscapes with great clouds- I would not use this lens if I wanted to only photograph a cityscape. Typically, when photographing a cityscape, you are at a distance and a wide angle lens will make anything in the distance look very small.This will make your cityscape look much further away reducing the impact of your photo. The only exception to the rule is if you have great dramatic skies that you want to highlight. If you are shooting clouds or doing Astrophotography, then the wide angle lens will do a great job.
I hope you find this guide useful for understanding and shooting with a wide angle lens. It will take a lot of practice to get used to it, but once you learn how to properly use it, this will be one of the best tools you have to create unique and memorable photos.
