Snapshot Episode: A Quick Guide to Ultra-Wide Angle Lenses

Ultra-wide angle lenses may not take the majority of the photographs on a typical trip, but the images they produce can be some of the most immersive, useful and memorable. They are fantastic for astrophotography, Northern Lights, travel assignments, interiors and those experiential photographs that place the viewer right in the middle of the action.

In this episode, Court explores what qualifies as an ultra-wide angle lens, how crop-sensor conversions affect focal length, and why wider is not always better. He also compares prime and zoom lenses, explains the tradeoff between maximum aperture and field of view, and shares why approximately 20mm has become his personal sweet spot for many nighttime and travel-photography situations.

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Transcript

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Court (00:00)
I absolutely love ultra wide angle lenses and they really do tend to come with me on all my trips. Sometimes they are a really integral lens, like for Northern Lights or for astrophotography. Sometimes they are my X factor lens because I might not use them all the time, but they do give me this really special X factor look on, you know, like five or ten percent of my photos. They can be absolutely vital for interior photography, for any sort of photo assignments

When you might need to get experiential kind of shots like inside safari vehicles or at safari camps. I'm using the word safari as like a general nature term here. It's not only in Africa, but they are just absolutely vital. So today's episode is a guide to ultra-wide angle lenses, what to buy and how to best use them. So friends, welcome back to the Wild Photographer Podcast. Always a pleasure to have you in the audience. Let's go ahead and dive on in.

So, first of all, what is an ultra-wide angle lens? Well, it's a little bit subjective. I'm gonna give you my interpretation of it. I've done some research, the old Webster dictionary definitions, but really when I'm thinking of ultra wide, I'm thinking of wider than 24 millimeters on a full frame lens. So this is an important distinction to make right off the bat.

is the full frame equivalent is really most of the terminology I'm gonna be working with today. So when I say 24 millimeters, that's 24 on a full frame. If you are photographing on a micro four-thirds or on some sort of crop frame sensor, usually these are more introductory cameras, although OM systems and their micro four-thirds are indeed pro-level.

You have to multiply the actual focal length by a certain factor. And your camera will tell you what that is or your camera's manual. You can quit Google it. but oftentimes it's anywhere between 1.4 times and two times. So when I say a 24 millimeter lens, that could be a 12 millimeter on a micro four-thirds, because you have to multiply it by two. So hopefully I'm not losing you here,

But I will refer to crop frame equivalence just so you you have quick, easy access to this information. But the basic gist is ultra wide is indeed that almost fisheye kind of view. And I find that that really starts in and around the 24 millimeter range, and it goes really as low as like 12 millimeters. When you go below 12 millimeters on a full frame equivalent, you start to get into that fish-eye look, and it's no longer what we term rectilinear. I know that's a big fancy term.

but you start to get distortion in your photo. You start to get that real extreme curvature at the corners and on the sides, top and bottom of your photo. So we're not talking about fish eyes, we're not talking about normal wide angle zoom lenses like the classic 24 to 105. We're really talking about that range of like the 12 to 24, the 15 to 35, 16 to 35, 17 to 40.

In fact, one of my favorite lenses way back in the day was my 17 to 40 Canon lens. And I actually used that probably 90% of the time as my walking around lens. Like I didn't have a 24-105. And I was so happy with it because it was sharp, it was versatile, and it gave me that X factor look when I was in tight scenarios, I had the ability to really capture the whole scene. When I had something very close in front of me, but I also wanted to get the background.

When I'm photographing people and wildlife from Safari vehicles, I want to get the whole scene. So they really are immensely valuable. and then the final point I'll make there in terms of like the quote unquote what they are is you'll oftentimes see the angle of view or field of view written in like degrees. And we're looking at anything, once again, kind of above a hundred degree field of view. If you go into the fisheye end of the spectrum, there are dedicated fisheye lenses out there for most platforms, you'll start seeing things like a hundred and

50 degree field of view, 180 degree field of view. Those are great, but you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot get that crazy wide end of the spectrum without having a sizable amount of distortion, frankly. So the sweet spot where you get minimal distortion, but you do get a crazy wide angle is indeed roughly that 16 to 35 on full frame equivalent. So let me kind of give some relativity to the crop frame sensors. Again,

16 to 35 on full frame, but oftentimes, at least with Canon, Nikon Sony, when you have a crop frame sensor, they are gonna have another set of lenses out there that are available for you. At least for the Canon system, it's called APSC. that's kind of a common terminology across things, but you might have DX versus FX for Nikon. But the gist is that you might see in your options of lenses for your camera that there are 11 to 16 millimeters, there are 10 to 22s.

And those are fantastic, but you have to do that conversion multiplying it, but whatever that crop factor is to figure out what that full frame equivalent is. So for instance, on Canon, it has a 1.6 crop factor. So the 10 to 22 actually becomes a 16 millimeter lens at this widest. So you'll notice you you aren't getting this crazy, crazy, almost fisheye field of view. It is a quote unquote normal ultra-wide angle lens. So just remember that when you're shopping for lenses, that if you are going for a crop frame lens,

you have to add and take into account that multiplier effect.

So let's talk about a little bit more detail on when I use them. So, like I mentioned, it's fantastic if you're doing assignment photography for, you know, like I do for travel companies and I'm photographing camps and accommodations, it might be hotels, could be hotel rooms or camp rooms, and I need to have as much wide angle as possible. Like a 24 millimeter, a 28 millimeter is just not gonna cut it. Even though you might think, gosh, what is really the difference between 16 and 24? If I'm shooting on a 200 millimeter lens.

The difference between you know 200 and 220 isn't that much. Well, it is wildly more pronounced at that wide end of the spectrum. So just take that into account. Going from 20 down to 16 is actually a pretty big difference. You can do some Google searches and get some example photos out there, but it does really give you potentially like feet in reality on either direction, such that you might be able to get that additional chair or bed or window or viewing area in a camp.

whatever it might be. If you're in a vehicle, you can get an extra row of seats to really showcase what that whole scene looked and felt like. other than accommodations and experiential type photos, they are my primary night photography lens. So I love them for astrophotography. I love them for northern lights photography. I think they're actually critical for those two types of photography or the overall.

Realm of night photography, but we're gonna get into some differences as to why a 20 millimeter 1.4 might be different, better, worse than a 16 millimeter f2.8. There are really different purposes. Not saying you have to have both to get your full gamut of opportunities out there, but there are some pros and cons to each. So again, night photography, astro, northern lights, really, really great. Also, blue hour photography, that's kind of like a pseudo-night photography.

But really, I think generally these kind of fall in the category of what I would call an X factor lens. They will probably not be used for the majority of your landscape photography. In fact, I personally love zoom telephotos like a 70 to 200 for landscapes.

I find that using an ultra-wide angle lens for landscape photography actually diminishes and kind of shrinks the landscape elements that I actually want to make look really big, like trees, like mountain ranges in the distance. So contrary to popular belief, I don't think that they're actually integral or really, really useful for landscape photography. Primarily they are for tight quarters, they are for different fields of view, it's a much more immersive kind of photograph.

I love it when I'm trying to photograph someone working with their hands. It might be doing some blacksmithing. It might be at like a beading workshop. And I want to get a close-up of their hands working with this material, whatever they're doing, making jewelry, gardening, et cetera. But I also want to get their face. I want to get their body. I want to get the landscape. I want to get the agricultural field. I want to get it all. But these ultra-wide angles allow you to get very, very close to your subject. So you get this really interesting.

very immersive first person view of whatever you're photographing.

So again, they might be on my camera other than night photography for five, 10% of a trip, but they do often provide photos that I absolutely need, I absolutely want. And there's a disproportionate amount of that 5% of photos that I will keep and will actually have in my final album or portfolio or what have you, because those photos are really dang useful. They're really dang unique, and they do give you this incredible perspective. In fact, when I was talking with Chris Burkhard, he was a guest in the podcast a couple years ago.

his favorite lens is the 16 to 35. This is for aerial photography, photographing out of planes photographing landscapes, photographing all of Iceland. So they are a favorite amongst many pro photographers, and they're absolutely worth considering having in your kit for your travel photography, for your work photography, really just daily lifestyle photography as well.

So I want to talk next about the difference between prime ultrawides and zoom ultra wide. So the basic gist is that a prime of anything means it's a fixed focal length. You cannot zoom in, zoom out. A zoom means that you have some sort of range. So for instance, a 16 to 35, a very classic, ultrawide lens that most camera manufacturers make, remember this would be

The equivalent of like an 8 to 15 in the crop frame or 10 to 22 in the crop frame. This is excellent for so many applications. but you do get dinged a little bit. So with that zoom, you will sacrifice a little bit of quality in the ending photo. You will probably not get to have as small of F numbers as you would of a prime. There are more moving parts, so they're bigger, they're heavier.

And then if you want to up the quality so that they are close to on par with the prime, you're gonna pay more money.

Primes, on the other hand, are smaller, they're lighter, they usually have much better aperture ratings. So for instance, my 20 millimeter prime is an f1.4, which is incredible because compare that to a 15 to 35 or 16 to 35 at f2.8, that lets in four times the amount of light, which is a game changer for astro and night photography.

In addition, f1.4 does give you that nice background blur, but I will say that the background blur of a small F number is significantly less pronounced when you get onto that ultra-wide angle of the spectrum. So for instance, I could be shooting a full landscape with a subject near me with distant mountains and shoot at F1.4, and you'd be surprised that.

mostly the whole thing is in focus. You obviously could not do that with a telephoto because telephotos exaggerate that background separation and that background blur. So it's really nice that you can still have a very, very sharp deep depth of field, but also be getting a ton of light in your photo, which you know has enormous benefits, whether it's just getting a faster shutter speed, whether it's dropping your ISO down to a really, really low level like 100 or 200. That aperture rating is a big deal for me. And I do tend to prefer primes for ultra wides.

Because I usually can move in and out of the action. Like because I'm setting up a shot for night, I don't need to be quite as versatile as I do with portraiture photography, with wildlife photography when those zooms become very, very important.

That all being said, you do have a lot more versatility when you're working with a 10 to 22 or a 16 to 35. 35 is a great focal length for people photography, general travel photography.

So that range, I don't want to diminish its value. The zooms are absolutely more flexible, but you have to think about the size and the weight. And that's actually a big reason why I sold my 16 to 35 in place of a 20 millimeter. And I'm very, very happy with that decision. It's excellent, if not critical, for nighttime photography, but I also find that I just don't need to zoom in as much when I'm doing work with an ultra wide because I can usually physically move closer or further from my subject.

compare that to a seventy two hundred or one hundred to five hundred and it's really a a market difference. So I think primes do offer a number of benefits and that ultra wide end of the spectrum.

So next, let's talk about that widest focal length, like the smallest number on that 16 to 35 or that 11 to 16. So that 11 or that 16, that that's probably gonna be what you use most often. But one thing that you're gonna notice when you shop around and look around at different options out there is that the price you pay and the overall quality is gonna have market difference, not so much through the range, but especially at that lower part of the range. So

At the 16 millimeter, you might notice that a less expensive lens has significant and real noticeable distortion. And that's generally not a good thing. We can correct a bit of it in Photoshop, Lightroom, Camera RAW, all that, but generally the distortion is more pronounced. It's more of an issue when you go with an intro version of these lenses versus more of like the pro level.

And then the biggest thing, if you are looking at picking up one of these, renting one, if you're considering bringing one in your kit, maybe something you already have, is you have to think about what that minimum focal length is in terms of what your subjects are. So that the tangible example here, I've already mentioned this, but at that widening of the spectrum, when you get down into the 16s, in the 14s, especially, is that if you are photographing a big landscape, the way that those optics work is you might have a big mountain range in front of you.

But it actually makes it look really, really small. So this is this really came to a head when I was considering purchasing either the 14 millimeter or the 20 millimeter ultra wide from Canon to do some astrophotography in Namibia a couple months back. And I ultimately ended up with the 20 millimeter and was very happy with it because although it didn't get as much of the night sky, it got enough.

And most importantly, when I was photographing foreground elements like wildflowers, yes, there actually are wildflowers in the deserts of Namibia, or some of those really snarled, kind of cool looking trees, is that 20 millimeter made those trees look bigger in the environment, which is exactly what I wanted. So remember, ultra, ultra wide, like going down to 14 millimeters at the full frame equivalent, is nice for things like Aurora and night skies. You can you can get more of the Milky Way, you can get more of the aurora, you can get more of the sky.

These are very, very valuable things. However, it's gonna make any sort of foreground element look smaller. And as you get closer to that foreground element to maybe make it bigger in your frame, that's when you start getting that depth of field issue. The closer you are to your subject, the more likely either your subject or your background has to be in focus. So

Ultimately, yes, it's really nice to have crazy ultra wide, again in like the sub-15 level, but it does make anything that's in your frame look a lot smaller. And I'm not a huge fan of that. I d my style of photography is to make things pronounced and big. And also the depth of field, if you're really close to a subject at 14 millimeters, you're gonna find at that 1.4, at that 2.8, you might not get to have your cake and eat it too, and have the foreground in focus and background.

one of those might be out of focus if you get closer to your subject. because remember depth of field is very much a ratio of you to your subject to the background. so if you're relatively close to your subject, but your subject is very distant from the background, it's hard to make everything in focus. So that's a long way of saying that

you might think that the smaller the focal length or the the wider it is just unequivocally the better, but it's not always the case. I find personally a sweet spot in and around 20 millimeters, very, very little distortion. You can still get a lot of the sky, believe it or not, a 20 millimeter gets quite a bit more than a 24. So I I like I said, I don't think 24 is quite in that ultra wide end of the spectrum. but 20, great sweet spot. And 16 is also very good too.

I will say that I love the 16 to 35 class for Aurora specifically. So if you are planning on going on an Aurora trip, a Northern Lights viewing and photography trip, the 16 to 35 is great. You do have one quarter of the light when you're at f2.8 versus f1.4, but you really don't need 1.4 for northern lights, to be totally frank. I've been photographing northern lights for many, many years, and I can tell you that you don't need it.

if you're just getting into ultra-wide photography, that's probably the starting point. but if you start getting into more niche photography, like only astrophotography.

you really want to prioritize speed over the lens. So in other words, that F1.4 versus 2.8 at the expense of the ultra, wide angle.

So there you go, a quick snapshot guide to ultra-wide angle lenses. Like I said, I do love them. I think that they are a wonderful X factor lens. I also think that they're just a great travel lens. So if you are a travel nature, wildlife, and landscape photographer, I think it's absolutely worth considering as one of your next lens investments. Do a little bit of homework to figure out where that sweet spot is for you.

If you're just getting into it, I would recommend that you go for sort of the the gold standard, which is that fifteen to thirty five, sixteen to thirty five range.

I know Nikon does a 14 to 24 millimeter. Those are all pretty darn similar.

but also you have to really think of what you're gonna be taking the most photos of. Do you go for wider and sacrifice light, or do you prioritize light and sacrifice a little bit of that wider than the spectrum? These are personal decisions, of course, nothing I can absolutely advise you on. But if you are headed on a trip and you would like to get more details or get an answer to the question for very, very specific use cases from me,

I'd love to hear from you. I will be happy to discuss with you. You can head on over to my YouTube channel. That's just youtube.com/@courtwhelan You'll find my channel with all sorts of great editing and photo tutorials there as well. And that's the best place to get a hold of me. So drop a comment, ask a question, and I will be sure to see it. And I would love to hear from you. So once again, thanks for joining. A quick dive into ultrawides. Get out there and happy shooting. Looking forward to talking to you next time.