How to Get the Most out of a Wide Angle Lens for Landscape Photography

The wide angle is undoubtedly the lens of choice for the majority of landscape photography, but it comes with its own challenges and pitfalls. If you have trouble using wide angle lenses, check out this great video full of a ton of helpful tips to improve your images.

Coming to you from Andy Mumford, this excellent video discusses how to get the most out of a wide angle lens for landscape photography. When I was learning, one mistake I commonly made was forgetting to include a proper foreground element. Wide angle lenses tend to push the background away from the camera, and without a foreground element, the resulting photo can feel rather vast and empty. Beyond that, foreground elements also serve to invite a viewer's eye into a frame and lead it deeper into the image while also adding more visual interest and complexity by creating multiple layers of depth. Be sure to also experiment with your distance to the foreground element, as just a few inches can make a big difference when you're working with a wide angle lens. Check out the video above for a lot of helpful tips from Mumford. 

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out "Photographing The World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing with Elia Locardi." 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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6 Comments

Great video from one of the best.

This video gave lots of great tips on using a wide-angle lens and what to look for when setting-up your camera. The only thing I need now is a new camera.

Thank you for this article! Much appreciated!

One thing that I have learned recently is that if you are going to shoot at the extreme apertures, leave room to crop the edges/corners especially on zooms unless you have the best, best lenses. The sharpness sure goes down.

Image from post is at Ursa Beach, Portugal. What a magical place :)

Great video.