Among the other tools yo’ure going to use for your photography will be other lenses aside from the basic ones that come with the camera.
If you can only select one for for your lens of choice, the answer will probably be a wide angle, and about 20 MM is the best.
The world should be viewed as a huge series of earth and skies and all thats in between is something worth shooting for.
Seeing things in isolated little batches, rather than as a whole is a mistake that many photographers make particularly when they are shooting the entire scene and not taking into account what will give your photo some punch.
The real problem with the wide angle lenses is that photography is about seeing it all.. taking apart the photo and eliminationg all the elements that you don’t want so that the image is broken down into exactly what you want.. the key ingredients and making it perfect for your vision..
Using a wide angle lens is very much like being able to get it all.. and we sometimes forget to focus on just one part. its the old kid in the candy store syndrome.. We sometimes can’t seem to focus effectively on just one thing, because we are very often wrestling with the age old dilemma.. I want it all and I want it now.
Which means that when we use our wide angle.. we try, rather than to focus on one thing and do it well.. to lack focus and to try to gain everything in the single photo using that wide angle lens.
Using a wide angle lens makes us something feel that we should take it all on rather than to use that lens to concentrate on just one single chore and do that chore well..
People tend to think that you should use your wide angle just to get a big scene that a normal lens can’t take all in.. Thats true up to a point since the wide angle does have.. you guessed it.. wider angles but the simple truth is that even though they can take in the entire world that doesn’t mean it should.
If you use your wide angle lens that way, in most cases, unless you are focusing on something quite closely in the foreground, nearly all the detail is lost in the cacaphony of the BIG picture, because there is so MUCH in that photo and none of it is really a focal point.
As you can see.. I like gnarled twisted brush with character.
What I think is the key to good use of a wide angle, is using it CLOSE UP. Which probably goes against what all the pro’s will tell you, to be honest, having never formally studied I don’t know, but I do know that for my time and money, the closer the better.
The thing you are making the focal point of your image is going to be BIG inside the frame, while the background is just that.. background.. and sets off the subject, but fades into lesser importance.
This is how I use it on the Grand Canyon..
I got close enough to the tree on the edge to fall in.. (Seriously.. lost my favorite hat into the canyon).. but got a great photo of the tree, and the canyon as the backdrop.
The Grand Canyon with no real focal point other than the canyon
As you can see by the picture, this works with any lens to be honest… GET CLOSE and then, GET CLOSER!!
The images below are those I shot in September 2006 in the Grand Canyon. The two which give you some kind of focal point, even just the scrub growing on the rim, have far more impact than that which just shoots the canyon itself, albeit its a grand sight.
Give yourself some kind of focus, some subject to showcase and the background looks that much deeper and more dramatic.
Again with the trees, much more dramatic than the canyon alone as seen above
To make the already awesome canyon look even more dramatic, even deeper and larger, just belly up to something on the edge of it, make that fill or frame the shot and the canyon looks even nicer by comparison than it does in the single image where it is all there is.
Having a strong subject in the image, or as I said, a strong focus of some type, makes what ever else in in the photo more dramatic by comparison.
The key to all of it is EXPERIMENT.!! Have fun and stay safe.
Scrub trees frame the canyon
