Buying a wide-angle lens: what's important?

Is it time to expand your lens collection? Wide-angle lenses are truly an unique addition! In fact, this lens is suitable for the city, indoors and nature. Let's take you into the world of the wide-angle lens.

What is a wide-angle lens?

Before we can tell you the details of a wide-angle lens, it is worth knowing what a wide-angle lens actually does. The name actually tells it all, the lens has a wide angle of view. This allows you to take pictures with a wide image aspect. This is due to the short focal lengths that wide-angle lenses have. The focal length determines the distance between the sensor and the lens, and how wide the angle of view becomes. The focal length is expressed in millimetres and the angle of view in degrees.

Wide-angle lense types

Wide-angle lenses thus have a short focal length and a wide angle of view. If you want to find out if a lens is a wide-angle lens, you can take 10 mm and 35 mm for logical distances. There are wide-angle lenses with a fixed focal point. With these lenses you can only take wide images. There are also wide-angle lenses with variable focal length. With these lenses, it will still be possible to also make zoomed-in images.

Pros & Cons in a nutshell

Photographing with a wide-angle lens has a number of side effects that you should pay close attention to. Of course there are advantages and disadvantages to each type of lens. We are going to help you with the pros and cons to decide if the wide-angle lens is of benefit for you!

Benefits of a wide-angle lens

✔ Capture a wider range in one image

✔ Distracting elements fade away by focusing on the foreground

✔ Spaces appear larger on your images

✔ Playful possibilities with lines and distortions

Disadvantages of a wide-angle lens

✘ Distorted perspective

✘ There is a difference between the objects when you look at them and when they are captured

✘ Faces at the edge of a photo can become a strange shape

When do I buy a wide-angle lens?

This one may be more obvious than you might think. You actually choose a wide-angle lens primarily when you want to capture a lot in your photo. Does your heart beat faster when you think of capturing beautiful nature areas, or maybe those big imposing buildings in the city centre? Then wide-angle lenses are ideal for you. Because due to the short focal length of the wide-angle lenses, you always have the wide field of view at your disposal. This ensures you can capture a lot. When you use a wide-angle lens with zoom function, you can use the lens for more types of photography.

What to photograph with a wide-angle lens?

The wide angle of view of this lens makes it easier to fit everything in one image, as mentioned earlier. This is useful for landscapes, cityscapes and interior photography. For landscapes and cityscapes the wide-angle lens is especially perfect because the entire scene will be in the photo. Also for interior photography this is a preferred lens because the spaces will look bigger. This will especially be used by real estate brokers or interior designers. With specific lenses like the wide-angle lens, there are also types of photography for which it’s better to choose a different lens. Wide-angle lenses are normally not used when taking portrait photos.