what is a wide angle lens?

A wide-angle lens has a field of view significantly wider than that of the human eye. You can just capture a huge amount of a scene in a single image.

In other words, it’s got a wider field of view than a normal lens, which has a focal length of somewhere between 40mm and 58mm on a full frame camera. This means that, on a full frame camera, any lens with a focal length of less than 35mm is considered to be a wide-angle lens. The lower the focal length, the wider the field of view and thus, the wider the lens. A lens with a focal length lower than 24mm is referred to as an ultra wide-angle lens.

Massive field of view

The main attribute of wide-angle lenses is their massive field of view. You can capture a huge amount of a scene in a single image. That’s the main reason they’re popular with landscape photographers.

dramatic effect of perspective

Wide-angle lenses have a dramatic effect on perspective too. Objects close to the camera will appear much larger than objects further away. It’s an entirely different look to what we see with our eyes.

With wide-angle lenses, it’s very easy to get a large depth of field. The short focal length means that you can have everything from a few feet in front of the camera to the mountains in the distance in sharp focus. This is much more difficult with a lens with a longer focal lens. On the other hand, it’s very difficult to get a shallow depth of field with a wide angle lens, even at wide apertures.