The BEST way to use wide angle lenses

3 Tips to Use Wide Angle Lenses to the Max!

Most photographers don’t know how to use wide angle lenses to their full potential.

You might opt for a telephoto or a zoom lens instead, and think wide angles are only good for landscapes.

But you would be so wrong! The place to start with wide angle lenses is to understand you can use them for far more than just getting as much of what is in front of you into the frame as possible.

Alex Kilbee of the Photographic Eye shares in this video tutorial how you can make the most of wide angle lenses and take amazing wide angle photos!

Learn How to Use A Wide Angle Lens

If you are interested in getting a wide angle lens, here’s a few options:

• Canon 10-18mm lens
• Sigma 10-20mm lens
• Tamron 10-24mm lens
• Sony 20mm lens

What is A Wide Angle Lens & What Does it Do?

Firstly, wide-angle lenses, like all lenses, are a tool to help you express your creativity. By better understanding of what you can actually do with this kind of lens will help you express yourself even more.

Wide angle lenses have a shorter focal length, which gives them a wider field of view. The field of view is typically wider than the human eye so these lenses capture a wide range of detail.

They make the subject seem further away, and widen what is visible through the camera lens.

Here are a few ways to use Wide Angle Lenses to create unique and powerful photographs!

How to Use Wide Angle Lenses Tip #1: Break the barrier between viewer and subject

Using the unique ability of these lenses to play with perspective can allow the viewer to ‘step into’ your photograph. 

The way this lens changes the viewer’s perception of the position of the elements within your photograph can add depth and immersion in a way other lenses cannot. 

You can make some elements feel distant and oddly far away while simultaneously making other elements jump out as if trying to come out of the photo

A mistake people often make when using this lens is to try to make everything look or feel on the same plane

Being uncomfortable with the contrast in positioning in this way actually removes the depth and emersion that is possible and makes for boring photos. You essentially miss the potential and even purpose of this lens

Try to fill the edges of the frame of your lens with things that maybe ‘shouldn’t be there’.

Don’t be afraid to have extreme cropping and allow that variance in dimension to cause the viewer to be pulled into your photograph. 

How to Use A Wide Angle Lens Tip #2: Intentional distortion

Another way to use the wide view point these lenses have is to create Intentional Distortion. 

Firstly, what is distortion in photography? This is any deformation in an image that is produced by the camera’s lens. Generally, this is seen when straight lines in an image appear bent or curvy or deformed. 

Intentional distortion then would be using this effect on purpose to create the desired result. This distortion can be used to create a weird, dreamy and unusual feel.

How to Use Wide Angle Lenses Tip #3: Exaggerating Leading Lines

The use of leading lines is a standard tool in the toolbox of any photographer. Using a wide angle lens can exaggerate and magnify the effect leading lines have to draw the viewer in to your photo in unique and powerful ways. 

These lenses are great for center point composition, when your subject is right in the center of the photo.

You also have the ability to give the subject space to breathe on its edges, which is the beauty of the wide field of view.

Having a subject in the middle of the frame, and then using the nature of the wide angle lens to create these exaggerated leading lines to really draw the viewer’s eye into the middle of the photo.

These lenses allow you to play with distortion, perspective and to add unusual depth to close subjects.

This lens brings subjects close so that they seem unusually dominant, in a way that invites the viewer into the image.

You can master the art of wide angle lenses, and not just for landscapes!

Want to improve your photography overall? Check out this comprehensive guide!

Which of these tips will you use to level up your wide angle lens photos THIS WEEK?

Comment below!