Wide-angle lenses are incredibly popular for landscape photographers, but they can be very tricky to use. The main problem is that these lenses are so different from the way we normally see the world, which makes it easy to use them incorrectly. Still, wide-angle lenses are one of the most important tools that you have at your disposal, and when used well can lead to spectacular photos. In this article, we will cover everything you need to know about using wide angle lenses.
First, you might like to check out our 7.5-minute video on wide angle lenses, where we cover all these topics in the context of photographing Utah’s slot canyons:
Table of Contents
1. Exaggerating Perspective
If you’ve never used a wide-angle lens before, the first thing you’ll notice is their exaggerated perspective on the world.
You already know that you can increase the size of nearby objects if you move closer to them. Wide-angle lenses, though, are so wide that they let you get incredibly close to your subject and still fit it all in your photo.
As we have covered before, the actual perspective of your photos doesn’t actually depend upon your lens — it only depends upon your distance to a subject. However, wide-angle lenses appear to change your perspective more than other lenses, since they let you get much closer than normal to the things that you’re photographing.
This exaggerated perspective is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it means that the foreground of your photo will be incredibly large and detailed. Personally, I love photographing sand dunes, and wide-angle lenses are perfect for showing the crazy lines all around me. A lot of people also love using wide-angle lenses to photograph waves that have washed ashore, or any other interesting foreground objects.
There is a problem with the apparent exaggeration in perspective from a wide-angle lens. Although nearby objects appear huge and detailed, everything in the distance shrinks tremendously. If you’re photographing mountains, for example, they may end up looking tiny and insignificant if you use a wide-angle lens.
This is the main problem that people run into when they use a wide-angle lens for landscape photography. Yes, wide-angle lenses increase the size of your foreground, but this comes at the expense of your background. I almost never use a wide-angle lens to photograph mountains, unless I am incredibly close to them, because they simply appear insignificant in the photo.
Take a look at the comparison below. The first photo was taken with a 20mm lens, and the distant mountain appears almost completely insignificant. The second photo was taken with a 70mm lens, which is much more successful.
20mm photo:
Here’s the final photo, taken at 70mm:
This brings up another point: you need to have an interesting foreground if it’s going to be exaggerated so much. Clearly, the foreground in the first photo is very boring. It’s mostly just a clump of grasses and a few rocks, and it certainly isn’t important enough to take up half the photo.
Still, despite these problems, wide-angle lenses are great for a lot of landscape photography. If you have a good foreground, they can make your photo feel three-dimensional, as if your viewer can walk into a scene. This isn’t usually true for telephoto lenses, which tend to be best for photographing distant landscapes.
2. A Sweeping View
A lot of people will say that you shouldn’t use a wide-angle lens as a way to “fit everything in” a photo. I respectfully disagree.
Sometimes, if you have an incredible scene that sweeps across the landscape, the only way to capture it all is to use a wide-angle lens (or stitch a panorama from a telephoto lens). Obviously, you still need to watch out for your foreground and background, but that is always the case.
I find that this is particularly true when there are interesting clouds overhead. If you want to show all the crazy clouds in a landscape — along with the landscape itself — a wide-angle lens is your best bet.
When I was in Yellowstone one morning, the entire sky turned incredible colors. It was essentially a rainbow overhead, and I knew that I wanted to get as much of it as possible in my photo. So, naturally, I used a wide-angle lens.
Since I was standing on a hill, this photo hardly even has a foreground. But, exaggerating the foreground wasn’t my purpose with this photo! Instead, I wanted to show the sweeping view of the scene — I wanted to fit everything in the photo.
Of course, I see where people are coming from when they warn against using a wide-angle lens like this. A lot of beginners arrive at a beautiful landscape, then use the widest lens they have simply to capture as much of it as possible. Then, they arrive home with a lot of empty nothingness in their images and wonder what went wrong.
When you’re using a wide angle lens, the hardest part about composition is making sure that there is something interesting in every part of the photo. In many landscapes, your widest lens will fill most of the frame with grass and an empty sky. A photo like this probably won’t be very powerful.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: the only time that you should use a wide-angle lens to fit everything in is when there are so many incredible things that every part of the photo does have something interesting. That was the case when I visited Yellowstone, but it is rarer than you may think.
3. Negative Space
Another way to use wide-angle lenses is to create a photo that has a lot of negative space.
What is negative space? In photography, negative space is the part of a photo that doesn’t attract much attention. If your photo has a small tree surrounded by a blank canvas of snow, it is said to have a lot of negative space.
Wide-angle lenses do a good job of introducing negative space to your photo — often when this isn’t your goal. If you want to show the beauty of a distant mountain, you probably don’t want 3/4 of the photo to be filled with empty sky that no one looks at.
However, for some photos, negative space is an incredibly powerful tool. It makes your subject stand out, surrounded by a field of emptiness. At the same time, negative space carries an air of loneliness to a photo. If you are trying to show the smallness of your subject in the world, negative space is a great way to do so. In the photo below, that’s exactly what I was trying to do:
Because of all the negative space, this image conveys a sense of isolation.
Of course, for landscape photography, this isn’t often your goal. Too much negative space can make a photo feel empty, which only works if you are specifically going for that kind of effect.
In fact, a lot of times, negative space is the main problem with a photo from wide-angle lenses. If you are trying to show the sweeping beauty of a scene, it can be a problem if the photo seems desolate and empty.
As always, it depends upon the specific photo that you are taking. Maybe you want to show the emptiness of a desert scene, in which case negative space is exactly what you want. But, if you are trying to show the beauty and drama of a distant scene, negative space takes viewers away from the action.
4. Using Wide-Angle Lenses (Video)
If you have a few minutes to spare, I invite you to check out my detailed video on how to use wide angle lenses, which covers everything in this article and beyond:
5. Conclusion
Wide-angle lenses are some of the most popular tools for landscape photography, and with good reason. Because they let you get so close to your subject, you can exaggerate the size of a beautiful foreground and create a photo that feels three-dimensional. Plus, if you’re photographing a sweeping viewpoint filled with beautiful subjects, a wide-angle lens can be the best way to capture it all.
Wide-angle lenses aren’t exactly easy to use. They tend to add a lot of negative space to your compositions, which isn’t always desirable. At the same time, they shrink the size of your background relative to the rest of the image, diminishing its importance. Because wide-angle lenses are so different from our normal perspective on the world, a lot of photographers end up using theirs incorrectly.
If you can work around these problems, though, wide-angle lenses will become a crucial part of your arsenal. I use mine more than any other lens for landscape photography, and I’ve always been happy with the photos that it helps me take. Plus, the more you use your wide-angle lens, the better you’ll get at it. There is a reason why these lenses have gained such strong reputations in the world of landscape photography — they let you capture the world in a very interesting way.
This was incredibly helpful and informative. I can’t wait to play with my new wide angle lens. From seascapes to negative space photo’s to close ups!! Very excited … thank you!
A very informative and helpful article, thank you very much. I am just getting used to using the canon 24/70 f4 L on the 6d mark 2. Not as wide as some of the lenses you have been using on your beautiful landscape shots, but the article has really helped with my understanding of the way that they work. On that note I think II will practice a little more before investing in an even wider prime lens.
Thanks. especially for the emphasis on negative space. Reading this essay and comments recalled an older article and comments on using wideanglesby Thom Hogan, who was immensely influenced by the late Galen Rowell. And one couldn’t find a better mentor.
This article on using wideangle lenses underscores the importance of foreground, middle and far-ground, and especially in landscapes. And it’s useful to strive toward a logarithmic scale in proportioning these respective zones.
www.dslrbodies.com/lense…-lens.html
Spencer,
As always, good article and example photos.
I see that the widest shot with your D7000 was at 17mm. This is where standard DX zooms usually stop.
Do you have recommendation for a real wide (or ultra-wide) lens for Nikon DX photographers?
Thank you.
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
Highly regarded DX lens
Hi Monte,
Yes, it seems to be quite popular. Another popular choice is Sigma 10-20 mm.
Are you using Tokina lens?
Thanks,
Sinisa
Nice article. I observe that all the photos have apertures from f/8 to f/16 and so depth of field will be deep. I wonder why you use an f/1.4 or f/1.8 lens if you have to use them at f/8 or f/16. Does the MTF chart have some influence at f/8 and above?
Thank you, Mohan! I use f/8 to f/16 simply to get enough depth of field in the photo. For landscapes like this, a photo at f/1.4 or f/1.8 would be almost completely out of focus. Still, I use lenses with a large maximum aperture for a few reasons.
First, for nighttime landscapes, having a lens with a large aperture is crucial. I don’t shoot a lot of Milky Way photos yet, but I certainly do some, and a wide aperture is absolutely necessary for that kind of work. At the same time, I am a fan of prime lenses (for their weight, price, and lack of flare), and almost all wide-angle primes have apertures of f/1.4 and f/1.8. If the Nikon 20mm f/1.8 were, instead, a Nikon 20mm f/2.8, I probably still would have bought it. (The old Nikon 20mm f/2.8 is still a good lens, but not of the same caliber as the newer 20mm f/1.8.)
I was also looking for more information about using or not using wide open apertures. I have the Nikon 20mm f/1.8 and was curious as to when it might be appropriate to use f/1.8. It seems like wide angles lenses are more story telling lenses. Do you have any examples of using f/1.8?
Thanks for the article Spencer. It is very useful to me as a coastal walker who recently-ish started taking photos too – and even more recently discovered wide angle lenses. I love turning up at a beach before sunrise and capturing that lovely dawn light with my shiny new nikon 16-35 :) I have found the lower I am the better I like the results – which makes sense I think given your article.
PS: PhotographyLife is my go-to place when I want to find something out – you’ve (et al) created a fab resource; thanks again.
Thank you for the kind words, Colin, and we are very glad that you find Photography Life so useful! The Nikon 16-35mm is a great lens — hope you get a lot of good photos out of it.
This is very honest, non-pretentious article. So what if it does not cover everything, it should not.
Thank you, Z, glad you liked the article!
Spencer Cox, the thinking man’s Photographer…
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I very much look forward to all of your posts. I always learn something, or as in this case they make me think about something again with a renewed understanding…
Thank you also for your consistency and patience in your responses to comments. You have the perfect personality and temperament for this.
Duffy
Thank you, Duffy, I think you give me too much credit! We’re lucky to have readers who look forward to our posts like this :)
Thanks for this great article Spencer.
I never “understood” wide angle like this before. I will be re-reading this article some more times since this has definitely given me new perspective [in the dictionary sense and also the foreground/background perspective that you just taught me!! :) ]
For me the wide angle was always to ensure i get my motorcycle to appear in the bottom corners just to satisfy myself a decade later that i did go to that place on a two wheeler. I have also screwed up a lot of probable very good keepers by having a large aperture to compensate for my hand shake or low shutter speeds on aperture priority – thus leaving a lot of fuzzyness when the picture was zoomed in at 100% on the computer.
Thanks again!
Glad you liked the article! Wide-angles are a great tool for this kind of photography.
Hi Spencer, You encourage me to use my tele more for landscape:) I think you are besides a talented photographer also a talented writer. I would love to hear your artistic vision about wideangle versus panorama shots. Maybe something for an other article?
Thank you, Max! In terms of panoramas, I find myself creating them more with my telephoto lens than with my wide-angle. Part of this is because it’s easier to stitch telephoto shots together, and part is just for compositional reasons. For example, I don’t usually do panoramas when the landscape has an interesting item in the foreground, since it tends to look kind of awkward. I think this is because panoramas are so thin from top to bottom — they don’t leave enough space for a large item to fill the foreground. The same reason is behind all the vertical wide-angle shots that people take if they want to emphasize a foreground element.