I have owned a wide angle (11-16mm for apsc) lens for years now. And it is without a doubt my least used lens in my landscape kit. When I go to a location I can find excuses to shoot anything from 20 up to 500mm depending on the setting, but making good use of wide angle absolutely escapes me.
What tips, tricks, setups etc should I be looking for to get better use out of this lens? What article or videos helped you understand how to use a wide angle in landscapes? I want to make use of this lens and not just haul it everywhere to inevitably leave it in the bag so any help in “seeing” a wide angle shot would be greatly appreciated.
You must log in or register to comment.
A 14-24 full- frame is my favourite lens. That being said, it’s also difficult to use.
I use it mainly for astrophotography, and when there is a strong foreground element. Think stuff like rocks and patterns on foreground, interesting textures on the ground, a scene like small wildflowers on foreground and huge vistas and valleys and mountains in background, stuff like that. It really distorts the stuff close to the lens, making them appear bigger and compresses the things far away, creating a dramatic and perspective.
I also occasionally use it for some highly stylized portraits, when I want some distortion- elongated legs and hands, emphasis on shoes, stuff like that.
For an wide angle to work, you almost always need a strong foreground (unless you’re doing astro and have such similar wide-encompassing patterns/colors in the sky).
I mostly use UWA in city shots but I do use it in landscape too. I’ll normally test out different focal lengths and lenses and see what the landscape will look like and then decided what focal length to shoot at.
This was 18mm in FF equivalence if you must. Panny 8-18mm m43
I like to shoot wide when there’s a great sky and foreground interest like an old tree or some flowing water or something like that. If you shoot wide and compose like a longer lens everything will look too small and far away in your shot. You need to have foreground interest up close and it will dominate the image and then you’ll also get all that context with the other stuff (mountains, sky, etc) that winds up in the frame.
You need to be careful with your composition because it’s easy to wind up with distractions in the frame that you may not notice until later.
Here’s a recent(ish) wide shot (20mm on medium format) I took that I think illustrates this reasonably well.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattbnet/53200596930/in/dateposted-public/
I’ve got some wide angle tips on my YouTube. It’s certainly a unique way to ‘see’ the world and can be unnatural at first. It really allows for some great possibilities though and a solid way to create depth and linear perspectives.
