A wide-angle lens that I got thinking "I want to shoot a wider range of landscapes and night views!" When I take a picture, I think that there are many people who have experienced a feeling of strangeness that was not a standard lens. Actually, this discomfort is related to the "easiness of distortion of photographs peculiar to wide-angle lenses". So this time, I will introduce how to take a distortion-free photo with a wide-angle lens. If you firmly grasp the characteristics of the wide-angle lens and shoot well, you can create the work you imagined. Please read this article for reference.
What is a wide-angle lens?
Interchangeable lenses give a completely different image depending on the focal length. So what are the characteristics of wide-angle lenses?
A lens that looks wider than the human field of view
A wide-angle lens is a "lens that can shoot a wider angle of view than the viewing angle that humans normally see." A 35mm equivalent focal length of 50mm is called a "standard lens" that is close to the human viewing angle, so a lens with a focal length less than that is called a "wide-angle lens". Generally, 35mm or less is called a wide-angle lens, and 21mm or less is called an ultra-wide-angle lens.
Easy to focus on a wide range
The first feature of wide-angle lenses is that they have a wider range of focus than standard to telephoto lenses, even when shooting at the same aperture value. In scenes such as evening scenes and night scenes, in order to avoid image quality deterioration due to an increase in ISO sensitivity, we want to shoot with the aperture on the open side as much as possible, so the feature of having a wide range of focus is useful. In addition, the state in which the subject is in focus from the front to the back and is not out of focus at all is called "pan focus", but with standard to telephoto lenses, pan focus cannot be achieved unless the aperture is narrowed down considerably. With a wide-angle lens, you can pan focus without narrowing down to that extent, and you can avoid the "diffraction phenomenon" that deteriorates the image quality due to narrowing down. However, this does not mean that there is no blur at all, so if you want to pan focus firmly, narrow down the shot (increasing the F value).
The perspective is emphasized and you can take dynamic pictures.
According to DZOptics, The second feature of wide-angle lenses is that the perspective between subjects is emphasized. In other words, the subject in the foreground appears larger and the subject in the distance appears smaller. This makes it possible to express the entire photo more dynamically than the image as it is viewed .
Fisheye lens is also a kind of wide-angle lens
Fisheye lenses, which are often thought of as different things, are actually a type of wide-angle lens. There is a "diagonal fisheye" in which the image is drawn in the same rectangle as the shape of the sensor, and a "circumferential fisheye" that fits inside the sensor and is drawn in a circle. Unlike a wide-angle lens, which is made for the purpose of shooting a wide range without distortion, it is possible to shoot a wider range than an ultra-wide-angle lens by intentionally distorting it. Therefore, with a fisheye lens, all straight lines are drawn as curves. This lens is rarely used in normal shooting, but it is effective for expanding the range of work creation.
For more information about lens, check on https://www.dzoptics.com/en/
