Wide angle lenses

[ronald lamarsh]

Am I missing something or are wide angle lenses just not for me? I have a 90mm f8 SA and have yet to make a good image with it. The lens is excellent but the photographer is lacking. Is this an indication I should go to something less extreme? say in the 135mm range? I tend to shoot what ever interests me...buildings, landscape flowers closeup etc.

[Bill_1856]

"You are not alone."

[Brian Vuillemenot]

I find that moderate wide angles are a lot easier to compose with and use than the more extreme ones- I use my 110 about ten times as often as my 75. It really depends on how you see, and what situation you're working in though- there are no right or wrong focal lengths.

[neil poulsen]

I rarely use that wide of a lens on landscape, although I'm not sure what you're photographing. Much more common to use a 90mm on architecture.

[Daniel Geiger]

Lens choices are personal. There is nothing "right" or "wrong" with (dis-)liking/using one or the other lens. I happen to like the 90 for outdoor nature/landscape, even upgraded from a Schneider 90f/8 to a Schneider 90XL with center filter and LOVE it! I also do quite a few plant portraits with it in LF, or in SLR with the Zeiss Distagon 21 mm. Certainly not the most common choice, but it works for me. I like to overemphasize the flower and still see the rest of the plant. For that the WA works great. For instance, just did a Dudleya inflorescence in front with rosette in background, and strong inclination of focal plane to get flower and rosette in focus at about life size with the 90XL; not developed yet, sorry. For other nature images I've used other lenses, such as a 150 (some roses) or a 360 (a group of mushrooms) lens.

If it does not do it for you, move on. Nothing wrong. On the other hand, if you are kind of in a rut with doing always the same, possibly hang on to the 90 and give it a bit more work out. Consider what WAs do: overemphasize foreground, reduce background. Then look for a scene where that is your intent. But if the scene asks for a more "normal" look, use a normal 150-180 mm lens. etc.

my 2c

[paul owen]

Hi Ron. I'm a big fan of wide angle lenses BUT one thing I noticed when moving to 5x4 is that lenses seem so much wider than I anticipated! My favourite focal length should equate to about a 24mm in 35mm terms, so a LF lens around 75mm - however, I find 90mm wide enough for the majority of situations and the 110XL that I use most seems as wide as the 90mm too!! I think it probably has something to do with that big ground glass screen making lenses appear "wider" ;)

[ADG]

I hope somebody out there can give a scientific explanation for this phenomenon. It's probably related to the effect where when you get to 8X10 you don't seem to need 2X the standard lens length for portraits.
Also it is easy to get the wideangle look from normal lenses using movements with large format.
I have used a 35mm SLR (Dynax/Maxxum 7) with a 28-105 as a framing device for 5x4, worked out a composition at the 28mm end, and then ended up shooting with the 150 on the 5x4 as the 90 seems way too wide, strange....

[Ole Tjugen]

I've gone the opposite way...

I never really got the hang of WA lenses on smaller formats (35mm and MF), but now I'm very happy using a 90mm Super Angulon on 5x7". My most used lenses for that format is the 90, a 165mm Angulon and a 240 Symmar.

But I'm getting better at using wide lenses on smaller formats too!

[Bruce Barlow]

I learned to see the world in 210mm by using only a 210 for my first year (21 years ago...). Then I got a 120mm and still rarely use it.

I think if you want to learn your wide angle, you'll put away anything else and use it for at least 6 months, to where you learn to see what that lens typically takes in. Yup, there may be no good pictures during that time. On the other hand, there just might, and you just might fall in love with it.

One of these days I may do that with my 120. I have spent entire days where it was the only lens I brought, but single days here and there are not enough.

[ronald moravec]

My answer is to use the same focal lenghts you used for your previous smaller format, adjusted of course.

As I photograph more and more, I`m about in year 45 now, I`m tending more and more to normal lenses.

I was looking for a 150 several weeks ago, but a friend/dealer had a 180 Rodinstock N. I tried it a few days and then bought it. The angle of view matches 50mm exactly.

I may replace my 135 Schneider Symar S with the current 135 Rodenstock as it will have some movement possible. The 35mm equavalent is 37.5 mm

I love the 110 for the hugh coverage and would not sell mine, but it is pretty wide and about equal to 30mm.

The 90 SA makes great images, but only when my back is against a wall.

When I am done here, I think the two favorites will be the 135 and 180.

[Jim Rhoades]

These guys are right. It's just the way you see. My widest 4x5/5x7 lens is a 90. It's my least used lens. Nothing on my living room wall was taken with it. It's there for when I have to get everything in and can't back up anymore. What's weird is that I shot alot of good stuff with a 21mm on my 35mm camera. The larger the format the longer the lens. Uh oh, is this a phallic responce?

[Huw Evans]

I'd go further, and say that my use of different focal lengths varies quite a lot from time to time. Overall, I have a definite preference for wide angles. Until a few weeks ago, the wider end of my 5x4 kit consisted of an old 65mm SA, plus 90mm and 120mm Angulons. They all got plenty of use, with the 120mm being easily my favourite.

But back in March of this year I decided to revamp my kit and update the old Schneiders, with the result that I replaced the 65mm, 90mm, and 120mm with a more modern 75mm SA and a 110mm XL. Since that time I've had two good productive weeks in the field plus a few odd days, and so far I haven't made a single picture with the 75mm. The 110mm has had a fair bit of use, but not nearly as much as the 120mm used to get. Probably about 70-80% of my pictures in that time have been taken with either a 150mm or 240mm lens. Sometimes it just goes that way.

[Dan Fromm]

Ron, each of us sees the world in his own way. If you can't see pleasing compositions with a wide lens, well, you're more of a narrow-angle sort of person. There's nothing wrong with that. Just go and take pictures that satisfy you.

FWIW, my preferred angle of view varies a lot with the format.

On Super 8, 6mm, the widest I can go with decent image quality, is my most-used focal length. Don't know why, but I usually want to get as much as possible in the frame.

On 35 mm still, for many years my most-used lens was 105 mm. Most recently I've been shooting a little wider.

On 2x3, my largest format, my most-used focal length was 100 mm until I got a 38/4.5 Biogon. The Biogon doesn't cover, is a marvel anyway, and opened my eyes to what could be done. Now I usually shoot no longer than 80 mm. This may be a consequence of the situations I shoot in. I find lenses shorter than normal problematic for landscape work where the distant is more interesting visually than the near.

[Bruce Watson]

I came at LF from a 35mm background. I thought like many people do that I'd want to use the "same" lenses as I did in 35mm (that is, the same angles of view). But that didn't happen. Not only is the aspect ratio different, but the way I use the camera is quite different.

With handheld cameras, I can walk the scene with the camera, looking through the view finder. If my scene doesn't fill the viewfinder, I can just step forward.

With LF, I walk the scene without the camera, decide the best position to use to make the photograph, then setup there. It's not until the camera is on the tripod that I can "put my head in the bag" and get a look at the ground glass. I find that I rarely move the camera at all, but that I occasionally switch lenses.

The result of my change in workflow is that I use more wide angle lenses and less long lenses. I spent a lot of time and effort to secure a 14" lens only to find that I've only needed it a couple of times in the past few years. Yet, in 35mm land my 105mm lens was one of my most used lenses. Similarly, I found that to capture some of the scenes I wanted to capture, I needed an 80mm lens. I never had an equivalently short lens in 35mm land.

What I suggest is that you not worry about forcing a scene to fit your lens. Continue to concentrate on scenes that capture your imagination. If at some time you find that you miss several scenes because you don't have the right lens, consider adding the appropriate lens to your kit. If you find over time that you have a lens in your kit that you seldom use, consider selling it. Over time your kit will begin to better reflect your own, personal, workflow. And that's a good thing.

[Graham Hughes]

I find myself using almost exclusively my 210 over my 135, and I don't find myself wanting anything wider. That may change since my last trip abroad--funny that I had to go to Europe to learn how to use wides--but I somewhat doubt it. Originally I thought this had something to do with the fact that the 135 really needs the bag bellows on my camera, but I suspect I see better with the 210 in general. I should really try shooting with the 135 again for a while to get used to it again.

[QT Luong]

Wide angles are just difficult to use because they include so much, while photography is an
exercise in selection and exclusion. You need everything to "come together": light, foreground,
middle ground, often horizon and sky, to produce a great wide-angle photograph. I personally
use the 110 on 5x7 for maybe half of my images because I try to convey this sense of "being there".
For me, "good conditions" is when I can pull the 110. Compared to smaller formats, wide-angle images
are particularly satisfying with LF, because you can still see all the details, whereas on smaller formats
things get too small in a high-quality enlargment.