Landscape photographer: "I never use wide angle for landscape photography"

gonzogolf wrote in post #17044850
But wide angle shots also diminish the things in the distance, so you might not want that.

This is what I don't like in going too wide for landscape photography.

Sibil wrote in post #17046970
This is what I don't like in going too wide for landscape photography.

I personally don't understand this logic. Shoot a pano, resize it to the same size as an ultrawide shot in terms of field of view & to fit the image onto the viewing medium, and what's the difference?
If you are printing huge, then that's a different scenario.

any lens is a landscape lens to me. to argue otherwise is just ridiculous and smacks of a boring day in the cubicle.

speedync wrote in post #17046988
Shoot a pano, resize it to the same size as an ultrawide shot in terms of field of view & to fit the image onto the viewing medium, and what's the difference?

Perspective on a stitched pano compared to an ultrawide angle shot of the same framing is completely different.

Lloydd wrote in post #17047075
Perspective on a stitched pano compared to an ultrawide angle shot of the same framing is completely different.

If both images were shot with the camera in the same position, the perspective (relative sizes of objects in the scene which are at different distances from the camera) will be identical. The framing could easily be different, but that does not affect perspective.

speedync wrote in post #17046988
I personally don't understand this logic. Shoot a pano, resize it to the same size as an ultrawide shot in terms of field of view & to fit the image onto the viewing medium, and what's the difference?
If you are printing huge, then that's a different scenario.

SkipD wrote in post #17047095
If both images were shot with the camera in the same position, the perspective (relative sizes of objects in the scene which are at different distances from the camera) will be identical. The framing could easily be different, but that does not affect perspective.

We are assuming the pano shot uses a different lens like 35mm and uwa shot is using a wide angle lens. It totally changes the perspective even though the camera is in the same position.

pkim1230 wrote in post #17047128
We are assuming the pano shot uses a different lens like 35mm and uwa shot is using a wide angle lens. It totally changes the perspective even though the camera is in the same position.

this is where he tells you perspective is caused by distance to subject...not focal length.

there's a thread on it somewhere...

the reason the UWA shots tend to look more distorted, is because in order to use an UWA well you want to get really close...no pano is going to be shot really close

DreDaze wrote in post #17047142
tthe reason the UWA shots tend to look more distorted, is because in order to use an UWA well you want to get really close...no pano is going to be shot really close

Well I do not think that you will be able to completely remove parallax error if you get close enough to a subject. So that will tend to limit how close you can go with a stitched pano. The other difficulty with stitched panos is that it I do not believe there is any lens available for a DSLR that will offer a rectilinear projection of a 180 degree field of view. The effects of using such wide fields of view are quite difficult for our brains to process, especially when projected on to a flat surface. I sometimes think it would be interesting to project such images on to the inside of a (quite large) sphere, or at least the relevant section of a sphere and then view the image from axial nodal point. That should help to resolve a lot of the apparent "distortion" that we percive.

Alan

pkim1230 wrote in post #17045161
I do feel like I'm lying to the viewers though, when I'm showing them a distorted wide view of a scene and it looks interestingly amazing, and it actually wasn't like that at all. I was thinking about what wide angle lens to buy for 6d when I realized maybe I should try to capture the scene 'as is' without distorting it, after hearing this guy say this. And after I heard this, I was so convinced I'm ruining all my experiences with photos that tell a lie, and I want to capture the truth without distortion. I wondered why there aren't more panos shots than wide-angle shots.

Unless you're a photojournalist, the point of photography isn't to simply capture what you see with your eyes...its to capture what you interpret in your mind and what you feel when you view a scene, and translate that into a photograph. Compositional decisions, including decisions about what focal length to use, are what bring that sense of feeling into often uneventful scenes.

mystik610 wrote in post #17047417
Unless you're a photojournalist, the point of photography isn't to simply capture what you see with your eyes...its to capture what you interpret in your mind and what you feel when you view a scene, and translate that into a photograph. Compositional decisions, including decisions about what focal length to use, are what bring that sense of feeling into often uneventful scenes.

Well said.

DreDaze wrote in post #17047142
this is where he tells you perspective is caused by distance to subject...not focal length.

there's a thread on it somewhere...

the reason the UWA shots tend to look more distorted, is because in order to use an UWA well you want to get really close...no pano is going to be shot really close

+1...

In reply to the original post. Using UWA for landscape is pretty useless for landscapes as I have found personally. Large mountains reduced to mere molehills to fit more in. You never get what the eye sees, and for me finding a lens that can replicate the magic of what you see is pretty special. It usually involves a longer focal length than wide.

I think a lot of folk think that pano is just a long image stitched together. A photographer friend of mine Peter Stewart does it to perfection IMO. He uses a 50mm lens and does a stitch with great effect. YOu'd never know.

DreDaze wrote in post #17047142
this is where he tells you perspective is caused by distance to subject...not focal length.

No. This is where I say that some people seem to like spending more time in front of their computer screens, fiddling around with all sorts of programs, settings & editing, reading up on all sorts of theories, techniques & physics, rather than simply getting outside, travelling to interesting places, & taking photos that interest & please them. But that's just me.
That's if you were talking about me.

speedync wrote in post #17047808
No. This is where I say that some people seem to like spending more time in front of their computer screens, fiddling around with all sorts of programs, settings & editing, reading up on all sorts of theories, techniques & physics, rather than simply getting outside, travelling to interesting places, & taking photos that interest & please them. But that's just me.
That's if you were talking about me.

Nope- I was talking about Skip

MalVeauX wrote in post #17046740
Heya,

Focal length is just a means to perspective.

There's no "focal length" for landscape. People go wide angle often, likely because they're not in huge vast sweeping areas with lots of distance, but rather, crammed cities and busy country sides, where wider angles let you get the whole scene at a close distance. Where as someone off in the middle of no where has distance to work with and may be doing landscape at telephoto ranges.

35mm on APS-C for landscape:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/obzz​Vz DPP_2119And8more_tonem​apped by Mwise1023, on Flickr

Who cares about focal length? It's all about what you want to compose, and knowing what it will take to achieve that field of view from the distance you're going to shoot from.

Very best,

Sorry to say but that image wouldve looked muuch better if you'd have used a wideangle lens and shooting near the farm in the far middle of the image. Like that its simply so hidden somehow..