Wide Angle Fun!

Wide angle lenses have a short focal length and an increased depth of field.  They are called wide angle as they cover a large area in their snapshots.  Hence they are used to shoot landscapes.  Here is the wide angle lens I use :



Here is a wide angle photo of fishermen packing their nets after a fishing trip :

Notice the vista of the beach in the background. With a wide angle lens objects in the foreground appear huge :

The greater depth of field seen with a wide angle lens can be further accentuated by using a small aperture at a large F number. The small aperture may require you to use a tripod in low light conditions as a slow shutter speed will result.

A wide angle lens enables you to capture a whole building :

or bring out the beauty of large skies and cloud formations :

What is the F number?

Most newcomers to photography are confused by the F number setting.  To put it quite simply follow this decision tree :


1.  Decide what parts of the image you want to have sharply focused. Here is a picture of a boy at nightime :



Since I wanted the model to be in sharp focus with the background nicely blurred I chose F1.8 as my aperture. Larger the aperture gives a smaller depth of field (DOF).


2.  Smaller the F number bigger is the aperture. This is because the aperture size is measured as a fraction with the denominator as the F number. Hence aperture of F/4 is smaller than  F/2.8.


3.  Checkout the picture below :



I wanted all the pillars to be in sharp focus so I increased the F number to F/6.3. Both foreground and background is sharp.


4.  Larger the F number gives a bigger depth of field.


PHOTOMANTRA : Small F numbers for portraits.