A wide angle lens is one of the most useful tools a photographer can have in their bag, but they can be deceptively difficult to create compelling images with. If you struggle with your wide angle lens and want to improve your photos, check out this great video tutorial that will give you some helpful tips to send you on your way.
Coming to you from Dylan Goldby, this excellent video tutorial will show you the ins and outs of composition with a wide angle lens. By far, the most common mistake I see people make with these focal lengths is not including a foreground element. We often instinctively reach for the wide angle lens because there is a lot of visual interest in a scene and we want to capture it all in a single frame. While that is fine, if all that interest is in the middle-ground and background, you will end up with an empty image that looks like it has compelling wallpaper for a backdrop. A foreground element brings layers of depth back to the photo and serves as a natural entry point for your viewer's eye to explore what it contains. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Goldby.
A lot of photographers want that ultra wide pano look lens for a one shot. But fail to know that the ultra wide is not about getting it "ALL" in. But like the video shows it is about a close subject with a very wide and a storied background. First the lens has to be great with no side distortion or even close distortion, an example would be the Voigtlander 10mm f/5.6 that keeps close verticals straight and close things sharp even wide open. For years in the digital world to get super wide there are the fisheye lenses BUT you needed a program called Fisheye Hemi. The 16mm focal link was basically the norm then the 14mm (Canon film FD 14mm /f/2.8) came out then the 12mm. The 12mm you can stand 10 to 20 yds away from a 40ft tree and get it all in and is great for the huge subject of the Milky Way to make it look small vs a 35 or 50 close up. But even indoors things are far away, in a room aim for a corner. But to get a wide shot that no one else will ever get like in the Antelope Canyon where most are using a 24mm or 16mm (standards) a 10 or 12mm is handy when moving fast and panorama gear is too much to operate. The one thing to understand is a photo is clear and sharp side to side but human eye vision is narrow with lots of out of focus peripheral, even looking at the moon it is huge and sharp BUT the bright foreground is out of focus and no lens will get the largeness of the moon in focus as well a bright foreground. Even a bracketed capture the moon will be small when using a 12mm (Secret to get both: 5 @ ISO/SS 125 with center at .5s). Remember with the wides it is all about the near subject and the wide background story, you can get a landscape looking image with a 600mm also with the right subject.