Shooting Landscape Images With a 10mm Full-Frame Lens

Shooting Landscape Images With a 10mm Full-Frame Lens

In a series of newly-released images, photographer Albert Dros is keen to exhibit the wonders of a 10mm lens and share tips for shooting. Based in the Netherlands, the wide-angled photos feature scenes from all around Europe.

By his own admission, Dros loves to shoot with extreme wide angles.

Shooting at 10mm is like shooting in another world. Because of the distortion on the edges, you automatically get an effect that kind of sucks you into the image. Foreground elements get extremely big, and clouds in the sky automatically point to the center.

When it comes to composition, the advice Dros would offer is to stay low to the ground. He loves how generally small objects in the foreground, such as rocks or flowers, can appear much larger on camera. When scouting out a potential photo, he says he often walks around holding his camera low, looking through the viewfinder in order to monitor how the scene in front of him looks with the distortion caused by the lens. “Centimeters can make or break an image composition wise,” he says.

Cloudy skies are another go-to for Dros, who says using wide-angled lenses really helps to accentuate how dramatic they look.

Describing it as a “whole new way of photographing,” he says it’s an entirely new way to get creative in landscapes or architecture photography.

These photos were shot with the Venus Laowa 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 FE on the Sony a7R III

What do you think of his images? Is it something you would try?

Images courtesy of, and used with the permission of, Albert Dros.

Jack Alexander's picture

A 28-year-old self-taught photographer, Jack Alexander specialises in intimate portraits with musicians, actors, and models.

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18 Comments

The image of Hallgrímskirkja is full of awesome!!!

Great images! I love to shoot with a wide angle lens, but I usually never get many keepers when I turn the camera to a portrait orientation. I constantly play with the position of the camera; little variations can create big difference especially if you start to tilt up or down a little. I had to look up what the Hallgrímskirkja was, but yes, that is a really cool picture.

I'd say it's pretty not-done to change out the affiliate links from Albert Dros (he has Amazon affiliate links for the gear linked in the article on his website) to something/someone else's affiliate link. https://www.albertdros.com/single-post/2019/04/06/Shooting-with-10mm-Ful...
@Fstoppers Can this please be checked out and the rightful owner of the article (Albert Dros in this case), be properly supported?

I agree. I gave permission to repost this article. Im not getting paid for any of this. Its pretty lame to, even then, change my affiliate links to their own.

Awesome! I love Albert Dros' photos, I could recognize them anywhere anytime.

Thanks Jonathan.

My pleasure Albert! Your photos are inspiring!

Yeah, really nice. I shoot landscapes with a 10mm (APS-C), and you definitely must adapt your approach to composition.

Close to the ground is one way - or anything in the very close foreground, eg to the side, will have a similar effect as long as you give a sense of depth by juxtaposing the near against the far. Usually.

Wow, great photographs!

I find myself conflicted about these images. I love the subject, color, texture, composition - pretty much everything. The composition draws me in, but then the distortion bothers my senses. Some buildings vertical while others are inconsistently leaning across the frame - almost like there is a mix of pincushion and barrel distortion. I suspect there is a point where a lens is so wide it becomes impossible to correct.

I've found that super wide angle images have so much going on in them that I get overwhelmed with what I'm supposed to focus on. Finding the hero in the image is difficult for me.

To each their own though!

I have been to some of the places that Dros has shot and seeing them through this 10mm lens totally changes the environment. Wonderful!

C'mon, seriously guys? Repost someone else's content then hijack their affiliate links? I was holding out hope that Albert gave permission for that but seeing him comment that he didn't okay that is pretty shitty.

Fstoppers loves to run indignant articles about photographers having their work stolen or getting taken advantage of then pulls this crap.

"Images courtesy of, and used with the permission of, Albert Dros."

He commented here as well. They got permission for the content but didn't say they were going to change the affiliate links to their own.

It's funny that my comment even has a downvote from Fstoppers' own crew. When I check his profile it says' 'Site admin and developer and designer @fstoppers ' . This is even getting funny. I emailed the editor of the article and apparently this is 'policy'. I like how they slightly rewrote my piece. Nothing wrong with everything but no one ever told me my affiliate links would be changed. So next time, I guess my 'policy' would be 'no changing of affiliate links'.

Awesome! Albert

All images are breathtaking! I have been doing panoramas to capture the Milky Way ARC. Many will go very wide as far a lenses like 16, 14, 12, now the 10mm but you can not capture the ARC or rainbow look of the path in the stars, just a single shot will have the path going straight across but a panorama gets that rainbow and at night with stars and a foreground of things of interest and colored lights. I have used a panorama head with a stepper at it base and before just looking at the rear display and looking at the overlay of a checkerboard. Looking at the degree marks in the dark is stopping and turning on a headlamp and move then shoot again. A pano rig atop a tripod that is level is the greatest. But my confusing of the right settings of the stepper per lens mm is a problem, setting of 35 degree steps for good overlay was on all websites but set to 15 degrees. Yes a final image was denser of pixels but takes 13-14 images but with a stepper maybe 2 minutes moving during NR phase to next click. I use PTGui Pro and stitching is no problem with points of two side by side married with same points. It has a program in side that tells which panel have no connection or few points. This last time It pointed out panels two or three away from the basic side by side and yes there was already a good looking pano but I did the extra work and I think better blending.
The reason for doing it with a 12 or 14mm is the height of the top of the lens to capture beyond the height of the arc for more pinpoint stars. Now with a new 10mm lens you get each image with more height. The reason for the height is so not to have to do two rolls or more and getting more things like aircraft trails. I did some research and for 10 to 16 use 45 degree steps meaning a 200 degree pano would only need 3 or 4 images that would take less than minute with 10 sec. images.and 10 sec. NR time.
I will have to wait till April to test, If any one knows if I am on the right track give a comment.
The last is the winter way while the Milky Way is behind the sun it is looking west!
Never be afraid of the lights.