Tag:landscape
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.
Should landscape photographers manipulate images? (take vs make an image) Manipulating an image, is it acceptable? I would have to say, straight off the bat, that I am firmly in the camp of making the image. While I hope for a great sky or light when I shoot, I am not against swapping in a new sky or adding light to create a better image. When the circumstances or conditions have given me lemons, I make lemonade.
Straight from the camera?
I also realise that some of you are throwing up your hands in horror and reminding me that this is totally unacceptable when entering competitions. However, I don’t enter competitions, and should I enter one, I wouldn’t use an image that has been heavily manipulated. Apart from that, I love manipulating an Image. Painters don’t necessarily paint what they see. They take artistic license – and people accept that as normal. With photographers, though, there is a large school of thought that the image should be as it was photographed, without adding or removing elements. So I tend to regard myself as someone who paints with a camera. I guess I could call myself a creative or ‘fine art photographer’ as it seems that you can change elements in fine art.
This school of thought seems to apply almost exclusively to landscape photography, and to a lesser degree, portraits. For an image that is obviously a composite or more in the digital manipulation section, adding or removing elements is not only acceptable but part of the process.
Changing a sky
Back in January, back when the world was still chugging along, oblivious to the oncoming pandemic and associated lockdowns, I enjoyed a quick overnight trip down to Portland where we stayed at the Cape Nelson Lighthouse. Coming back, we stopped off at a lavender farm. The sky was a bland white; the lavender wasn’t a lovely purple without sunshine. Had we been there in perfect conditions – I could have gotten the shot I wanted. However, at home, with Photoshop and Luminar, I edited and created the image that I could have gotten had the conditions been right… as a painter could without criticism.
Making the image doesn’t mean every image I take is manipulated, but I am not against having it in my bag of tricks. I also believe that if an image does have a swapped in the sky, it’s a bit dishonest to pretend it’s not. But, at the end of the day, my images are for me. I don’t sell them (no one wants them, LOL). I don’t enter competitions. They are just for my enjoyment, so I am not cheating or fooling anyone.
With the new Luminar Ai due out before the end of the year, this topic will not go away. Full disclosure, I have already pre-ordered my copy. What are your thoughts? Do you take or make an image?