Let me start off by saying that I never thought I would want a wide angle lens. Like many photographers, I fell in love with the creamy bokeh of a fast prime lens the second after I shot my first portrait session. I loved throwing the background completely out of focus and isolating my subject in the frame. However, I think I've found an exception to my preference: the ultra wide angle lens.
What is considered to be "ultra-wide" in terms of focal length? There are many photographers who will argue what they think the ranges our for a lens to be ultra-wide, but for simplicity, we will call any lens with a focal length of less than 24mm (on a full frame sensor) an ultra-wide angle lens. At any focal length lower than 24mm, you will generally have a very deep depth of field compared to the same aperture setting on a longer focal length like an 85mm lens. This means that more of your scene in your photo will be in focus when you're using an ultra-wide angle lens. So why would you use a shorter focal length like 14mm if you aren't able to throw the background out of focus like you would with a lens with a longer focal length? Story-telling.I believe that you should use a lens that will be most effective in telling the story that you want to tell with your photo. If your subject's surroundings add to the story of the photo, then you should include their surroundings. With a shorter focal length you have a wider field of view and therefore are able to capture more of the scene in relation to the subject.
Over Spring break, I decided to rent the Rokinon (also called Samyang) 14mm f/2.8 lens to test it out. I have been interested in buying a wider angle lens after my first time photographing the Milky Way at the beginning of March. My widest lens that I have now is 24mm and it is an f/4 lens, so it isn't ideal for shooting something like he Milky Way where you need both a wide focal length and a fast aperture.
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| My first shot of the Milky Way. Shot @ f/4, 20 sec, ISO 6400 |
After renting the Rokinon's 14mm I feel like I could definitely see myself using wider focal lengths when the photo's story would benefit from it.
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| Rokinon (also called Samyang) 14mm f/2.8 lens |
After picking up the 14mm from my local UPS store, I noticed that the clouds were extremely interesting. They had so much texture and went on for miles. Earlier in the week I had been location scouting places where I thought would be good to capture the Milky Way. I decided to take a quick adventure down to Lake Red Rock in Otley, Iowa. My Dad had recommended this location to me because it was one of the better places in terms of limited amounts of light pollution, so I decided to go there during the day to test out some compositions.
Unfortunately, the area where I wanted to set up to photograph the milky way, a 160 foot tall observation tower over looking the lake, was closed at 8:00 p.m. and anyone caught jumping the fence around the tower would face a fine. The fence really wasn't that tall, but the ranger's house was within sight of the parking lot by the tower, so I wouldn't have much time to get the shots I wanted and it wouldn't have been worth the inevitable fine.
However, I definitely had a great time during the day and got a lot of use out of the 14mm, so I'd say it was pretty successful. In addition to getting some shots that I really liked, I also learned a lot in terms of constructing panoramas and HDR images inside of Lightroom.
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| My favorite shot from my trip to Lake Red Rock over Spring Break. Shot @ f/11, 1/1000th sec, ISO 100. This image was a combination of 3 photos that I merged inside of Lightroom. In total I probably took about 100 shots of this exact scene to get the bracket of shots that I liked. |
Those are my thoughts on wide-angle lenses, but what do you think? Do you see yourself using wide angle lenses a lot during your photo shoots? Let me know your thoughts!
If you'd like to buy or rent this lens, click on the links below:
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Cool shots!
ReplyDeleteThank you Matthew, I appreciate the feedback!
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