Wide Angle Lens Selection

Lens selection according to the intended use . In this article, our topic is wide angle lenses;

What is a wide angle lens?

What are the advantages, which areas are used?

What to look for when buying a wide-angle lens etc. I will try to answer these questions in this article.

First of all we have to warn the readers, angles and measurements are calculated according to the sensor machines with 35 mm dimensions which we call full frame. In crop sensor machines, it is calculated according to the crop size of the machine. It is usually 1.5 multiplied. That means with 50 mm lens crop sensor,we see as 75 mm. The lens closest to the standard eye is 50 to 55 mm. Our subject is the wide-angle lens so if we go back to the subject. Wide-angle lenses are lenses from 10 mm to 24 mm.

The advantages of wide-angle lenses allow us to capture the image in narrow and small areas, which, of course, have its disadvantage. In the narrow area, there will be distortions in the corners, so the objects close will grow too much compared to those away. If we take people at wide angle, there will be too much deformation. This will make the composition look bad.

The advantage of using a wide-angle lens in interior photography is that it shows the space is larger and wider than it is, but there are points to pay attention to. Because objects may be broken, the walls, vertical beams, cabinets, etc. can be distortioned, we should pay attention that.  

We also need wide angle lenses in architectural shots. We can fit the whole frame without getting too far away from the sculpture we shoot. There may be too many buildings for architectural photography in cities with old buildings like Istanbul. However, since it has narrow streets, it is very difficult to shoot architecture. Therefore, wide-angle lenses come to our rescue. Here, one of the biggest problems is that we should try to shoot without disturbing symmetrical image of the architectural structure or by minimizing it.

For those who want to take landscape photography, we recommend not to detach wide-angle lenses, it is one of the most used areas of wide-angle lenses, many photographers start their profession with shooting landscape. Even though the landscape is easy to see, it has difficulties. We need to calculate location of the place we shoot according to the location of the sun, we need to find the best hours of the light, there are a lot of details like that.

One of the issues to consider when buying a wide-angle lens aperture values, the ratio of distortion in the corners, every point of the lens has the same clarity ratio or not, there are some points to pay attention to like these. No need to look for autofocus feature on wide-angle lenses. The net area is large and it is not sought because of the purposes of use.