The Limits of Wide

[silverturtle]

I have a question about Wide angle. What is the limit, what is the minimum Focul length you can go before you start getting distortion, on a 40d. For people shots i really prefer to go wider then 50mm as it lets me be closer to the person and get the prespective i want, but at 17-20mm, the background is way to distrorted.

I'm also thining of another prime, but my 50 i find is too narrow for me. Will a 35mm be fine for people photography without distortion. or is it too wide.

[silverturtle]

bump

[FiveRings]

As I understand it, this is more to do with distance-to-subject and subject-distance-to-background than simple focal length. As describe in this post (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=672913). Whether you shoot your subject with a 17mm from 40 feet or a 50mm from 40 feet, your background distortion remains the same. If you shoot at 17mm but change your distance-to-subject so that your framing stays the same as it were at 50mm, that's when your background distortion gets thrown. It's all explained quite well with examples in the thread that's linked.

[egordon99]

I'm also thining of another prime, but my 50 i find is too narrow for me. Will a 35mm be fine for people photography without distortion. or is it too wide.

Stick your 17-70 at 35mm and try taking some pictures. What do you think?

[RDKirk]

I have a question about Wide angle. What is the limit, what is the minimum Focul length you can go before you start getting distortion, on a 40d. For people shots i really prefer to go wider then 50mm as it lets me be closer to the person and get the prespective i want, but at 17-20mm, the background is way to distrorted.

I'm also thining of another prime, but my 50 i find is too narrow for me. Will a 35mm be fine for people photography without distortion. or is it too wide.

As mentioned above, the critical factor is the distance to the subject. Part of that equation is also the "depth" of the subject--the fore-to-aft dimension of the subject as a proportion of the total distance to the subject.

The "shallower" the subject, the closer you can get before you start to see the effects of exaggerated perspective.

[whuband]

I shoot a hundreds of events with a zoom, and I find that most of my pics are at 27mm to 32mm. If I were buying a fast prime it would be a 30mm. Sometimes space restrictions call for a wider lens, so I prefer the zoom.

[chris78cpr]

I would go for a fast 24/35mm.

I shoot some portraits on my 20mm but find the distortion to be a pain so leave that lens for shooting nightclub/party type pics.

[stealers]

As per many review sites, the wider the lens, more distortion. But there are tools out there to correct these lens distortions in your post processing. But 17mm of a 17-55mm is good enough.