Explain it like I'm 5: wide-angle lenses for landscapes

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19017557
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I completely "got you" the first time around. . I think you had worded the original post just fine.

I think that everyone here understands the relative subject sizes that a WA perspective gives us. . That is really basic stuff that almost everybody on a photography forum will already have a firm handle on.

Like you, I am interested in discussing the aesthetics that result from this perspective - what we like and don't like about it when it comes to the look or feel of an image taken with various angles of view.

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Yes! Exactly. Definitely hoping for more of a discussion about the aesthetics and why people prefer what they do for certain types of scenes.

P.S. I like your "environmental portrait" of the mountain goat!

Foolish wrote in post #19017497
I appreciate you going to all this trouble to explain the concepts! -- I do understand that, but I guess the conversation I was really looking for (I'm sure I didn't word my original post specifically enough) is:

• What are some common "best practices" of landscape photographers (or any kind of photographers that use wide angles) that make good use of the effects of a wide-angle lens?
  
• How do landscape (or any WA) photographers make the specific perspective features of the WA work to their benefit?
  
• What are some of the ways you can make a WA landscape interesting and compelling GIVEN THAT the lens will make some of the key features look quite unimpressive? (in other words, how do you compensate for tiny, far away mountains, OR, do you just not shoot those kinds of scenes with a WA? Wilt, you addressed this in terms of print size, but what if you're NOT printing?)
  
• What specifically is appealing about the WA lens to many landscape (or any WA) photographers -- are there any answers other than some variation of scope / scale / vastness / drama, or is that really the main appeal?
  

Having read forward to this, my answer above applies to the last bullet point.

Foolish wrote in post #19017565
This is a very good point!

However, I maintain that in many (most?) cases, I'm not sure (personally!) that shrinking the interesting features in a scene with a WA lens = "making the world look better." Obviously, plenty of people disagree with me there, because there are a LOT of those shots, but when I'm standing in front of a beautiful vista, my first thought isn't, "how can I make this stuff look smaller?" lol.

Thus my original post -- I clearly don't understand the appealing features of the WA lens for landscapes. Was hoping to learn about a different point of view from folks who use wide angles a lot and really like them!

This presumes that the subject in the distance is more important than the foreground element. If you are using a wide angle to it's best effect that may not be the case. If the foreground elements don't serve some compositional purpose then don't use a WA.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #19017531
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For many of us, we like photographs because they DON'T show what we see every day. It's about the lie, the fantasy, making the world look better.
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I very much agree, and I think this is why I prefer landscape images that are taken with a telephoto, rather than wide angle or a "normal" focal length.

Why would that be?

Well, sometimes it's because when I see something beautiful in nature, it will be surrounded by some things that aren't very beautiful. . I mean, who has ever seen a scene before them where everything in sight was truly beautiful, without any aesthetic outliers or distractions? . I never have; not once. . There is almost always something somewhere in the scene before you that just doesn't look quite right. . If I use a very wide angle, then this "not quite perfect" thing will be in my picture ..... YUCK!

However if I use a telephoto with a relatively narrow angle of view, then I can isolate the thing or things that I think is/are beautiful from all the other ugly crap around it/them. . With a 50-200mm or a 100-400mm lens, I can zoom in on the one part of the real life scene that I think is most picturesque, and exclude the not-so-pretty context within which it sits.

There are other times when there is just one small part of the scene before me that really strikes me, and I will want to focus on capturing that one little slice of the landscape so that I can show it with as much detail as possible. . Take the two images below as an example of this.

When I saw the moon starting to rise over the mountain range, I wanted to capture the interplay of the moon and the mountain peaks that it was just starting to clear. . That was the one thing that really stood out to me as "photo-worthy". . So I zoomed in to 188mm* so that I could capture the moon and the peaks immediately around it in good detail, showing the texture of the rock face, the snow, the vegetation, and the moon's surface.

gonzogolf wrote in post #19017586
This presumes that the subject in the distance is more important than the foreground element. If you are using a wide angle to it's best effect that may not be the case. If the foreground elements don't serve some compositional purpose then don't use a WA.

Fair point!

I wonder if you would be interested in talking about examples of landscape compositions that would really show off the best features of a WA lens?

If you were to stumble into a landscape scene, what kind of elements would make you reach for your WA?

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19017588
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I very much agree, and I think this is why I prefer landscape images that are taken with a telephoto, rather than wide angle or a "normal" focal length.

Why would that be?

Well, sometimes it's because when I see something beautiful in nature, it will be surrounded by some things that aren't very beautiful.

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However if I use a telephoto with a relatively narrow angle of view, then I can isolate the thing or things that I think is/are beautiful from all the other ugly crap around it/them.

lol!

Your shots serve as a nice example. The closer one has me focusing on the details -- the character of the ridge lines, the shadows, nuances in the topography, etc. The mountains seem a bit more rugged and dramatic since they look "big." The wider shot, on the other hand, doesn't encourage me to look at any one thing in particular -- instead it just seems to suggest a feeling, the atmosphere of that evening and what it probably felt like to stand there. It transmits the feeling that this is a big vista.

Foolish wrote in post #19017595
Fair point!

I wonder if you would be interested in talking about examples of landscape compositions that would really show off the best features of a WA lens?

If you were to stumble into a landscape scene, what kind of elements would make you reach for your WA?

Prairiescapes and skyscapes are excellent for wide angles because the goal is to show the vastness of the space. But those are the sorts of things where is often no foreground elements to anchor the scene. I'm guessing you want to show the Majesty of mountains and has been mentioned above sometimes that is best done with normal or telephoto lenses. However as mentioned before sometimes using a pond, lake, tree, barn or Boulder as foreground element to provide depth, and or leading lines can add to your composition. It's really about using the tools to craft the image you imagine.

On my morning commute I have an incredible view of the sangre de christo mountains. I've yet to take a satisfactory photo of this view. Part of the problem is that the mountain range is wide, with many rugged peaks but none being dominant as a subject from my distant view. If I frame it with a lens wide enough to cover the vista I'm left with too much uninteresting foreground, or too much sky above. If I use a longer lens then I have to select part of the scene and honestly there is now sweet spot in the range that stands out

The answer for this scenario is use a long lens and stitch a composite together. I haven't done it yet, in part for reasons of laziness and in part because the long stitched panorama prints are a pain to print and frame and I don't have a proper display space.

So to your earlier point some scenes defy traditional photo techniques to capture their Majesty. Your eye and you brain have the capability to ignore the inconvenient parts of a scene and enhance the scenery, but you camera is ruled by optics and frames and sometimes you have to work harder to make that happen

Foolish wrote in post #19017565
This is a very good point!

However, I maintain that in many (most?) cases, I'm not sure (personally!) that shrinking the interesting features in a scene with a WA lens = "making the world look better." ...

True, if there is AN interesting feature, though often enough the VISTA is the interesting feature, with W.A. you are not necessarily shooting a subject, (though that can be the case too) but often exposing a vista, where "the more the better" might apply.

Foolish wrote in post #19017315
lol, fair rib, but the main reason I think it looks unimpressive is because everything is much smaller.

I guess I was more looking for a discussion along the lines of, "yes, wide angles make some important features look much smaller, but here's how you make it a good photo ANYWAY, and why wide angle is WORTH the shrinking of certain features (and even preferable, to many people?)."

I have previously posted on why I love my wide angle lens for landscapes that may address some of your questions. I'll just say though that if anyone is taking a photo with a wide angle lens and their subject (ie, a mountain) is small/tiny/non-majestic, they are doing it wrong. There are techniques (focal length blending/perspective blending/moving closer) that allows you to squeeze all of the goodness out of a wide angle lens without turning your mountain into a molehill.

Bcaps wrote in post #19018412
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There are techniques (focal length blending/perspective blending/moving closer) that allows you to squeeze all of the goodness out of a wide angle lens without turning your mountain into a molehill.
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I think the OP started this thread to learn of such techniques. . If you are able to take the time to explain them here, and to show examples, I think that would be very helpful to the OP and others. . I realize that writing such a post (or series of posts) could take a couple hours, and of course I understand if you don't have the time to do so.


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There are a bunch of tutorials out there on the web and youtube which go into a lot more detail than I would be able to here. But as a general overview focal length blending is just taking two shots at different focal lengths and then blending them in photoshop. The idea being that in your first shot you compose for the foreground/midground and then you zoom in on the (for example) mountain/subject in the 2nd photo to keep the subject closer to what it looks like with your eye, and then you blend those in PS, keeping the FG/MG of the first shot and blending in the zoomed in mountain/subject from the second shot . As is true with most things in PS there are a large numbers of ways to accomplish this blending, you would just pick your personal favorite way (masking/clone stamp/etc).

Perspective blending is composing the first shot with the mountain/subject near the edge of the frame so you get that distortion from the lens at the edges and that makes the subject larger. Then you recompose showing more of the sky and then blend the sky into the first photo in PS.

I've used both of those techniques but for 90+% of my wide angle shots I try and pick a composition where I'm close enough that I don't have to do a focal/perspective blend and I just reserve those techniques for when I can't.

Foolish wrote in post #19017315
lol, fair rib, but the main reason I think it looks unimpressive is because everything is much smaller.

I guess I was more looking for a discussion along the lines of, "yes, wide angles make some important features look much smaller, but here's how you make it a good photo ANYWAY, and why wide angle is WORTH the shrinking of certain features (and even preferable, to many people?)."

Unfortunately there is no secret. The lens (or focal length) to use is the one that creates the perspective that you want. Wider is not always better (and I do use wide-angles a lot) and I also see many photos where IMO the background is too small and I would have backed up and used a longer FL.

Of course one also sees landscapes with no foreground and also no middle ground. OK if that is what you are going for, but often an oversight.


If you have a scene where it makes the mountains smaller than you want, then it is the wrong lens. You are then better off shooting at a longer FL and backing up to include whatever foreground to want to get the perspective you want.

Something that might be worth doing is going to Flickr or whatever and looking for landscapes of places you have been. See which once you like the most and what compositions and perspectives were used.

ejenner wrote in post #19018948
Of course one also sees landscapes with no foreground and also not much middle ground. OK if that is what you are going for, but more often an oversight.

Yes, sometimes there is NO foreground, and there is NO middle ground, and you have a rather wide expanse you would like to capture with a very WA lens FL.

I present a WA shot in the dinky size limited by your monitor. I can tell you that it is absolutely glorious to see (per the evaluation of others, including photographers who have been in my home) at 20" x 60" on canvas and viewed from about 3-4', as I have suggested in earlier posts in this thread.
At that large size and short viewing distance, you can discern individual passengers on the boat in the upper lake, and hikers on the trail the lies between the two lakes!

ejenner wrote in post #19018948
Something that might be worth doing is going to Flickr or whatever and looking for landscapes of places you have been. See which once you like the most and what compositions and perspectives were used.

Good advice generally and this is a good idea. Thank you!

Foolish wrote in post #19018978
Good advice generally and this is a good idea. Thank you!

I think it is of limited value, in trying to figure out what was done, especially if you have no data available to you about what FL and sensor format was used for a particular shot.
As a first exercise, try to tell me about my shot in post 43...FL, format, the circumstances of what was the foreground, the middle range, and the distant background of the scene. I will post details after you have tried to describe the shooting circumstances of the shot.