Tag:images
Wide angle lenses can make for powerful images, with a field of view significantly wider than a regular lens or even the human eye. If you have had your camera a while, you have probably considered buying one. But do you really need one? How do they work, and when do you use them? Or maybe you already have one but aren’t happy with your shots?
What is a wide angle lens?
The commonly accepted norm is any lens wider than the human field of vision is a wide-angle. Lenses in the 24mm – 16mm range are considered a wide-angle lens, and less than 16mm is deemed to be ultra-wide. Fisheye lenses are those less than 8mm. The most popular range is 16-35mm.
So What’s a “normal” lens?
A standard lens is one that, on a full-frame camera, has a focal length of 35mm or more. This is multiplied by 1.6 for canon and 1.5 for Nikon on a crop sensor. This makes the “normal” lens for a crop sensor 24mm, as this equates to 36mm on a full-frame camera.
When to use a wide angle
Wide angle lenses are used for capturing as much of the scene in front of you as possible. Therefore, they are convenient for interiors in real estate photography. Landscapes, cityscapes, seascapes and architecture are the other main categories that shine. However, as they include so much, you need to be especially mindful of not having distractions or negative space in your image.
How to use a wide angle
The most common mistake people make when using wide angles lenses for landscapes is to use them for every big vista or a standard lens. i.e. straight horizontal or vertical. This, however, creates a scene with the horizon across the centre. However, if you angle the lens down, the horizon becomes the top third of the image, and the foreground becomes the star.
It becomes more important to find a foreground subject because your background being pushed further to the back. Otherwise, everything in the frame will be too small to be of interest. So get as close or low as you can to your foreground and have a definite subject, preferably in the midground (to avoid distortion) in the image. My subject was the lake with autumn trees leading the eye in the picture below. I was on a sloping hill and couldn’t get closer to them than about 8ft – but the ‘trees’ in the lower edge of the frame were really only low shrubs though they look like small trees.
Not for every landscape shot
Bear in mind; the wide-angle lens won’t be the right lens for every big vista. A wide-angle will make everything in the scene look further away. Unless you are shooting close to the ground, in which case the foreground becomes much more significant. While you will fit everything in, you need to be mindful that the background will appear further away and smaller. So if you are going for dramatic tall mountains, then the wide-angle may not be the right lens for the shot. However, if you have an interesting foreground leading to an interesting distant element, the image retains its impact.
drawbacks of wide angle
The two drawbacks of a wide-angle are barrel distortion and lens flare. All wide angles distort the image, especially at the edges of an image, the cheaper ones more than others. You have to be especially mindful of what is in the edges of your images. Anything at the edges will bend inwards and require straightening in your editing. It follows then that you should never have a person on the outer edges of your image. You can minimise distortion by moving further back and zooming in slightly or later in post-processing.
Lens flare – you may like it in images – sometimes it helps, sometimes not. Apart from trying to remove in PS or the like – you can get around this by adjusting your angle, using a lens hood or (my favourite method) blocking it with your hand.
They do take some getting used to, if you have never used a wide-angle before. Like a macro, they aren’t a lens you can just put on and shoot with, which was the mistake I made when I got my first one. I’m not a read the manual kinda girl. You need to understand HOW they work to use them to their best advantage.
Practice makes perfect
When I first bought one, I went out all excited, got some shots, downloaded them at home and was disappointed. The images were uninteresting and had distortion. It then didn’t leave the bag much as I regretted buying it. Shortly before a big overseas trip, I changed camera systems and bought a wide-angle as well as a zoom and walkaround. I knew I wanted to get interiors of churches and views from the Eiffel tower, so a wide-angle was going to be needed. Lots of youtube and practice before I left gave me a basic understanding; though I still made mistakes, these were ones I could correct in post. Having said that, it’s not a huge learning curve – and once you have nutted it out, you will be able to capture more interesting and powerful images.
Oil and water photography produces gorgeous abstract images full of colour. It’s something that can be done easily at home – with items you have at hand. This is awesome, considering we are all in lockdown here in Victoria for the foreseeable future and getting supplies is difficult.
Supplies
- A glass dish. Size is a personal choice but the bigger the dish the bigger the image. I used a rectangular glass pyrex dish from Ikea. It’s particularly good for this type of thing as the logo is in the corner, not the centre of the dish as they usually are. So its easy to avoid including the logo in the image but any glass dish will work if its deep enough
- Glass cleaner (to clean your glass), paper towels or old towel
- Camera with macro lens or lens with macro extension tubes
- Tripod
- Cooking oil – any sort will do from olive oil, canola, vegetable, rice oil. they all work the same
- Dishwashing liquid
- Bright coloured backgrounds – wrapping paper, coloured patterned fabric, your iPad with a bright wallpaper on it. The brighter your backgrounds are the better. Don’t worry about the patterns on them – the backgrounds will be blurred out. Just go for bright colours.
- Something to stand your dish on. I used a photo frame with just the glass left in the frame. You can create legs from tins or cans or soft drink. Two wooden chairs also work. You need to be able to create a bridge to sit your dish on with the coloured backgrounds underneath
The Setup
Place your coloured background on a table or bench, and create the supports for your dish with the tins or chairs. If using chairs, you will need to place your background on a stack of books, so it’s not too far from the dish. You need it approximately 20-25 cms below the glass. I downloaded some colourful wallpapers to the iPad and used them under the setup for my backgrounds. Check out the free downloads at Wallpaperplay.com.
Fill your glass dish with water, almost to the top ( fill when it’s in place rather than fill and move). The more water you use, the deeper it is, the more it will hide the manufacturer’s logo on your dish.
Next, add some dishwashing liquid; just a dessert spoon is usually enough. This makes the bubbles more vibrant and makes them rounder and a bit thicker. Again, it’s not essential – you can work without dishwashing liquid, but I like how it makes the bubbles more 3D rather than flat.
Adding the Oil
Lastly, add your oil. How much is a personal choice and very much based on the size of your dish. With more oil, the more bubbles and less negative space. The larger the surface area of your dish, the more oil you will need. Start by adding a couple of tablespoons but ended up using just under a 1/4 cup. It was a big dish. I also found the oil bubbles tended to gravitate to the edges of the dish. It’s easier to add more oil bit by bit than have to start again if you have added too much.
Give your concoction a gentle stir to break the oil up. If your bubbles are too big, add a bit of dishwashing liquid and stir again. The more you stir, the more the bubbles will break up and become smaller. Stir gently as you don’t wash dishwashing liquid bubbles. If you want giant bubbles, go easy on the stirring. It does take a while for everything to stop moving after you’ve stirred. I waited, and waited… then left, made a cuppa, and came back ten mins later.
I shot with Olympus and used the 60mm macro. A macro is really essential for these types of shots. You can get away with a standard lens, but you will have to crop heavily. If you don’t want to invest in a macro lens, extension tubes also work and are quite inexpensive.
Camera Settings
In manual mode, I set the camera to F2.8 (it was the lowest my macro would go), ISO 200, and the shutter speed to the correct exposure for the available light, which in my case was 1/100. I then added +2 for exposure compensation to be nice a bright. A longer exposure isn’t a problem (but the moving bubbles are, so wait for them to settle a little each time you stir them). Next, attach the camera to the tripod, place it over the setup (carefully), and ensure the camera is shooting straight down. Try not to bump the dish, or everything will start moving again.
Focus on the bubbles!
Using live view, focus on the bubbles, not the water. This will ensure your background is nicely blurred and the bubbles are the star. Fire off some shots, move the camera around to shoot different sections of your dish as well as giving the liquid a very gentle stroke from time to time to move the bubbles to a different composition, and change the backgrounds out regularly
I shot around 200 images during my oil and water photography session and ended up deleting lots, as some were very similar, and in others, the bubbles weren’t as sharp as I would have liked. However, my tally at the end was 29 keepers, so it’s a lot of gain for a simple setup. So, while you have it all set up, shoot as many as you can.
Editing
Editing was minimal. I imported it into Photoshop and slightly increased the exposure, vibrance, contrast, and dehaze. Then it was a light sharpen and crop. I used the spot healing brush to edit out stray tiny bubbles for more negative space in some cases.
I also gave the back a rest (you cant avoid stooping over the setup), left it overnight. Then, the next day, I came back and gently dragged some shapes into strands rather than bubbles with a fingernail.
I found Oil and Water photography surprisingly easy and loads of fun. It’s something you can do at home without any extra supplies. And definitely not as hard on the back as the Water Refraction drops were.