The night that I decided to aim my camera skyward in an effort to capture the Milky Way was the night I realized that I loved this new lens even more.

But for those of you that like a more precise definition of what a wide-angle lens is… It is a lens with a short focal length. What is focal length? It is the distance from the converging focused image on a lens set to infinity, to the image sensor (or film) inside your camera. The distance is stated in millimeters. The shorter that distance is, the wider the viewing angle will be.

“At Photzy, we believe EVERYONE is creative, and that photography is the best way to explore and share your creative side with the world.”

Key Lesson: Wide-angle lenses are well suited for night photography because of their larger maximum aperture, and their ability to capture more of the night sky than a standard lens.

Remember at the beginning of this guide, when I asked you about the crazy question of what lens you would use if you could only use one for a year?

With the wide-angle lens, I could get very close to the child and still include a lot of the environment around her, which was so important to tell the story of what was going on.

You need a sturdy tripod, a camera that allows you to take photos at slow shutter speeds, and a lens that has a large aperture.

Dark-fieldmicroscopybacteria

Lines that get much smaller and curve away (due to the distorting effect of the lens) can make buildings appear crooked.

Recommended Reading: Interested in taking beautiful landscape photographs? Grab a copy of Photzy’s guide, Complete Guide to Landscape Photography

What isdark field microscopyused for

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Well, here is my new revelation. If I could only use one lens, it would be the wide-angle lens! I know this now because it is the lens I leave on my camera.

Another take-away from my experiment is that shooting with only one lens for a set period of time really ‘forces you’ to get to know that particular lens – its quirks and tendencies. You become a bit more of an expert with it.

Also, as previously mentioned, the lens can create the perception of depth, which helps the viewer to feel as if they are right there in the landscape.

If you have done any reading about wide-angle lenses before this guide, then you will know that photographing people while using a wide-angle lens doesn’t generally mix well.

This fun aspect of wide-angle lenses – making closer objects appear larger relative to objects that are farther away – can be used to create an exaggerated appearance of size or length.

When featuring a photographer from our group, one of the questions asked is, “If you could only use one lens for year, which one would it be?”

This photo is an example of how wide-angle lenses affect the relative size of objects in a photograph. The girl closest to the camera appears much larger than the second girl who is further away. This is because the girl in the foreground is much closer to the camera and lens (but in reality, the two girls are relatively close in size). Photograph by Leanne Cleaveley

Dark-fieldmicroscopyused to detect which microorganisms

A wide-angle lens is perfect for this task, as most of them have a large maximum aperture, which allows the most light to enter the camera.

Upon further examination, and after taking several more shots, I realized that the photos had a feeling of depth that was missing from my photos taken with my other lenses.

Well, because of all the properties of the wide-angle lens (as we previously discussed), portraits and close-up shots of people can appear distorted and odd looking.

I must say that I find myself drawn to this type of photography now, and I am happy to add another genre to my personal repertoire.

The light path of the darkfield illumination technique is typically applied to an upright microscope, as seen in Figure 2. The light path consists of three key components.

Having multiple objects, at different distances from the camera, presented within the photograph can enhance the perception of depth when using a wide-angle lens.

For the very reason that a wide-angle lens is wonderful, it can also be challenging. The wide-angle lens typically has a large area of exposed glass on the front element. This makes lens flair more of an issue than with other lenses.

This is something that I struggle with personally, and owning a wide-angle lens is now helping me to develop this skill.

So when I realized that I could get really close to my subjects with my new wide-angle lens and catch some great close-up shots, I was elated.

Now, the lens alone doesn’t do this. The photographer must consider leading lines, foreground objects, and the placement of subject within the frame.

I encourage you to give a wide-angle lens a try if you haven’t already. And don’t be afraid to try out a new field of photography, such as night photos or landscapes, if you haven’t already.

Dark-fieldmicroscopyspirochetes

It is often a good idea to try and get something in the foreground, the middle ground, and in the background if you want to accentuate the feeling of depth.

Dark field microscopyLeptospira

Key Lesson: Wide-angle lenses make objects that are close appear larger, and those further away much smaller. This can be helpful for adding a sense of depth to your photographs and even exaggerating an object’s size relative to its surroundings.

I stuck to the challenge precisely, except for two events that required the use of other lenses – one was a family portrait session that I had agreed to before I committed to the challenge, and the other was a boat ride which included my children tubing on the water from quite some distance away (I just had to zoom in on the looks of surprise, fear, and anguish on those little faces).

Recommended Reading: Interested in taking beautiful landscape photographs? Grab a copy of Photzy’s guide, Complete Guide to Landscape Photography.

Key Lesson: Wide-angle lenses can create problems when shooting serious portraits of people. They can make things that are closer to the camera seem larger and don’t always accentuate facial features in a flattering way.

This question terrifies me as I love macro photography, but I couldn’t shoot with a macro lens exclusively. How would I get great shots of my kids? Plus, I love my longer focal length telephoto zoom lens for photographing birds and other critters, but I would miss so many great shots by only having a telephoto lens (not to mention I’d probably back off of a cliff trying to get things into the frame).

Knowledge Center/ Application Notes/ Microscopy Application Notes/ Optical Microscopy Application: Darkfield Illumination

The first thing that strikes you when you peer through a wide-angle lens attached to your camera is how much of the scene in front of you is apparent in your viewfinder.

The image below, which includes a child in the foreground, works well with the use of a wide-angle lens, and may even be enhanced because of it.

All of these lenses aim to get more of the scene into the frame. You need to be aware of some of the quirks and perks of these lenses to appreciate their full potential.

Macro photography is a favorite photographic genre of mine, and I was sure that I would miss the macro shots that could only be taken with a macro lens while completing this challenge.

I personally avoided landscape photography before acquiring my new wide-angle lens (unless I was snapping vacation scenes).

Dark fieldmicroscope diagram

In this image, the far left of the building and the pole on the right curve inwards at the top of the photograph. This type of wide-angle lens distortion might be desirable. However, if it isn’t, it can sometimes be fixed within an editing program. A tool such as the ‘Transform tool’ in Lightroom can be used to fix the converging lines created by the wide-angle lens. Photograph by Leanne Cleaveley

All my shots of family and friends, backyard flora, sunsets, mountains, cityscapes, action shots, and night photos would all be taken with the wide-angle lens.

Upon further thought, I decided that two weeks was kind of wimpy. Summer was coming, and I felt a two-month commitment to the new lens would be much more challenging.

The exaggerated sense of scale can make leading lines appear more dramatic as well, as seen in this image. Photograph by Leanne Cleaveley

Key Lesson: Being aware of the type of distortion that wide-angle lenses can create can help you make these quirks work for and not against you when taking photos.

A new lens has entered my meagre kit and rather than get to know it slowly, I decided it would be fun to jump in with both feet.

You may not want to use this lens for portraiture, but that doesn’t mean you should always avoid taking shots of people with a wide-angle lens. It just means that you should be thoughtful about how you include them in your photos.

The very thing that can create depth, and interesting lines, in your shots can also work against you (depending on the type of photograph that you are taking).

Key Lesson: Lens flare shows as overexposed hazy spots across your photograph. They are caused by the sun, or bright light, hitting the front glass element on a lens. They can be avoided by using a lens hood, and also by checking the angle of the light so that it doesn’t hit the front glass element on your camera lens.

Wide-angle lenses are commonly defined as lenses with a focal length of less than 35mm. They can delve into the realm of ultra-wide angle lenses (shorter than 15mm), which includes fish-eye lenses.

To give this a try with your wide-angle lens, set your lens-focusing ring to infinity. Use a remote trigger (or alternatively, set the camera to a two-second delay) and set your shutter speed to 15 seconds or more.

Recommended Reading: If you’d like to learn how to create amazing portraits, grab a copy of Photzy’s premium guide, Art of Portrait Photography.

As I mentioned earlier, the wide-angle lens allows you to get more of the scene into the frame. This is a clear advantage for those attempting to shoot sweeping vistas of landscape.

Darkfield illumination is a technique in optical microscopy that eliminates scattered light from the sample image. This yields an image with a dark background around the specimen, and is essentially the complete opposite of the brightfield illumination technique. The primary imaging goal of the darkfield illumination technique is to enhance the contrast of an unstained sample, which is incredibly powerful, yet simple, for live cellular analysis or samples that have not gone through the staining process.

Dark field microscopyprinciple

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Additional optical microscopy applications include brightfield illumination, phase contrast, fluorescence, and differential interference contrast.

It’s necessary for you to include objects in the foreground, especially with a landscape photograph created with a wide-angle lens. You need that foreground object to help accentuate that sense of depth and provide balance to your photographs.

A lens hood helps, but I still find that I have to play with my camera angles, and even provide extra shade such as holding up a piece of cardboard, to avoid getting those annoying lens flare spots across my photo.

Dark field microscopysyphilis

It takes my breath away still when I put the camera to my eye and see all of that foreground, scenery, and sky in my field of view.

Also, the exaggerated perspective of the long rope out to the boat (the boat appears smaller and farther away as a result) makes the photo even more interesting.

I had been doing some reading about photographing the Milky Way, and I realized that I now had everything that I needed to pull this off.

Even if all the clouds in the sky are exactly the same size, those that are closer appear much larger than those that are farther away when viewed through a wide-angle lens.

It takes my breath away still when I put the camera to my eye and see all of that foreground, scenery, and sky in my field of view.

But once you know this, and can appreciate the positive aspects such as a larger portion of the scene in the frame, larger maximum aperture, and a short minimum focusing distance, you can really make this lens work for you.

The ice cream is as big as her head! This image (above) is a great example of how the exaggerated perspective from a wide-angle lens can add a creative element to a photograph.

Because of all the properties of the wide-angle lens, portraits and close-up shots of people can appear distorted and odd looking.

The first time I used my new wide-angle lens was to get a shot of the sunset from the view off of our deck in the backyard.

Wide-angle lenses exaggerate the appearance of objects, so things closer to the lens appear larger. When the thing closest to the lens is a person’s nose… You can see where I am going with this, right?

A typical darkfield illumination image has a white/bright specimen with a dark background and environment filling the image. This is the exact opposite of a brightfield illumination image, and is useful for unstained specimens or images that require increased contrast. The advantage with using darkfield illumination is that unstained specimens can remain alive and vital, whereas their brightfield counterparts must be treated and are no longer active. Also, it is possible to acquire more qualitative results with this technique through live cellular analysis. For additional information on the brightfield technique, please read Optical Microscopy Application: Brightfield Illumination.

After two months of exclusively using my wide-angle lens, I feel like I have learned enough to share some tips and ideas with others who are just getting to know this lens.