Comments on: 6 Winning Ways to Work Wide

By: Lorenzo Reffo

Lorenzo Reffo — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:04:24 +0000

Great article!! I bought a Tamron 10-24mm last may and I’m really happy with it.. I’d always loved wide-angle pictures, anyway I was a bit doubtful about buying such a lens.. definitely it’s been a good choice to get it!

I think another good advice might be: look at the sky! Using a wide-angle can give to cloudy skies a breath-taking dramatic effect… such as on the picture below:

http://tinyurl.com/knylgo
http://tinyurl.com/m2stow

By: kauaikid

kauaikid — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:03:32 +0000

Excellent tips! I just bought a Canon 70-200mm 2.8L IS lens, but my next purchase is the Canon 16-35mm 2.8L II lens. I’ve been using my Canon 24-70mm 2.8L lens coupled with a B&W circular polarizer and I have been getting great landscape pics with them. The colors are very rich and vibrant, but you must be careful when the lens is wide open…vignetting is definitely a problem, but nothing that Photoshop can’t handle. Now I can’t wait to get the 16-35mm so I can put some of your tips to good use…especially tip #2!

Thanks and keep the tips coming,
kauaikid

By: De66ie

De66ie — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:56:30 +0000

I am just beginning to shoot with my wide angle lense, so I found this very helpful. I have always loved my macro lens and the tehnique will definitely take a different turn for me with the wide angle lens. Thanks for all the great hints. :-)

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:35:46 +0000

Great article!!! I have the Canon 10-22 and am still learning it. These thoughts help.

By: B P Maiti

B P Maiti — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:02:31 +0000

Very much useful.I use 14mm.If he could give some insight for effective use of that lense.Thanks.

By: Robin Ryan

Robin Ryan — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:24:54 +0000

@Joe: Excellent point… I’d like to try out that 17-40, but Im on a D40. Maybe I’ll save up for that as my next, but the 35mm f/1.4 makes me drool so much.

By: Akif

Akif — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:28:52 +0000

very good and practical advice. i have been using a sigma 10-20mm with Eos 400d and most recently with eos 50d. pictures on my website are mostly by Eos 400D. i have been using the ND grad filters and occasionally circular polarizer.
Akif

By: MeiTeng

MeiTeng — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:33:50 +0000

Yes ND grad filters. Thanks for explaining,

By: Joe Decker

Joe Decker — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:45:05 +0000

@Conor: PTLens is another great suggestion for geometric distortion, indeed. Also, if I didn’t mention it, DXO’s products, but PTLens is very inexpensive. If you already have Photoshop, the built-in correction in the filter I mentioned works just fine, but if you don’t, PTLens is a very affordable, high-quality solution.

@JohnP: Indeed, yeah!

@MeiTeng: ND filters, or ND grad filters? I rarely use plain ND filters except for photographing waterfalls, so I wouldn’t recommend using one unless the image you want to create needs it for some other purpose.
BUT…. I do use graduated ND filters now and then. Is that what you were asking about? The ‘gradations” on an wide-angle image end up (on the image) a lot “harder” than they would on a longer lens. That means that if you want a softer transition from filtered to non-filtered in a wide-angle shot with a graduated ND filter, it’s critical to use a “soft” ND grad (I use my Singh-Ray soft 2-stop graduated ND filter a fair bit in that kind of situation.)

@Zack: Thanks for the kind words!

@Robin: I love night photography! Yeah, the 10-22 is a great lens if you’re working with a reduced-frame sensor. I’m on Canon, though, and I think by 17-35L/2.8, that’s a great lens but the updated version (16-35L/2.8 II) is what I’m using now and even sharper. For full-frame, for folks who don’t need f/2.8 the 17-40L/4 is just as sharp and a *lot* cheaper, and is another great zoom option.

@Michael: I don’t think the usual D40 kit lenses go quite as wide as the widest images there, you might want to look at the Nikon 12-24mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S DX, but even with a lens not quite as wide you can do a lot down in the 17-18mm range on your camera, and the same ideas apply. I’m pretty sure that the stream image, for example, was taken at 24mm on a full-frame camera (roughly equivalent to 17mm or so on your camera.)

And everyone: Thanks for all the comments and the many complements!

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:03:33 +0000

I’m very new at photography (I have a Nikon D40 – two lens kit)

What would be a good lens to purchase to recreate shots like those in this article?

Thanks.