There is no shortage of online essays about “Why I shoot x focal length.” While I’ve owned and explored many prime and zoom lenses over the years, I initially gravitated toward 50mm as my comfy default perspective. And while I lean more toward 35mm as a starting point today, I’ve always admired photographers like Tim Page who were masters of working with a properly wide angle field of view.
It’s a photographic truism that the wider you go, the more challenging it can be to craft your composition. Subjects can feel distorted, diminutive, or simply lost in a busy background; lines can be maddeningly difficult to keep straight; and oftentimes you realize you’re just too damn far away to manifest the scene you envisioned when you raised the camera to your eye.
Obviously there are a ton of caveats bound up in that statement. Some photographers aren’t concerned about “composition” in any formal sense; they might just want to capture expansive, perhaps purposefully chaotic perspectives for creative reasons, like shooting action sports. Or maybe they are aesthetically averse to shallow depth of field and enjoy the hyperfocal characteristics that are inherent in wider angle perspectives.
One of the more common applications for wide angle lenses is landscape photography. Wide open vistas or towering structures that require a vast perspective to grasp are a great reason to reach for a 24, 21, or even 18mm lens. Depending on your scene and setup, landscapes can also effectively eliminate the need to worry about focus, since the goal is oftentimes to focus at infinity and shoot at a narrower aperture. (I am referring to shooting in the 35mm format, so GFX and Hasselblad users, please hold off on that retort you started typing about focus stacking 16 frames.)
“If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”
— Robert Capa
While I appreciate the patience and solitude that a landscape excursion brings, I find myself more drawn to the idea of getting very close to my subject when shooting with a wide lens. This little collection of frames from the Venice Beach skatepark is a good example of the wide & close style I’m talking about.
I’ve been fascinated by the almost allergic reaction to the abundance of shallow depth of field in film and television these days. A thread you’ll come across in online discourse is the sense that the proliferation of shallow DOF is a gimmicky shortcut to a “premium feeling” image — despite the fact it is also a way to conceal the realities of filming on an LED volume, or not spending the time and money to dress, or render, a rich background environment. When a super shallow plane of focus seems like it is without narrative function, or reads as unnatural given the lighting conditions, viewers feel something is off.
But not all storytelling is burdened with bokeh; James Gunn’s 2025 Superman, lensed by Henry Braham, leaned into its decidedly wide angle aesthetic with the help of Leitz optics. As did cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra in his stupendous work on the Apple TV series The Studio. And though it’s a decade old, I am a huge fan of Pablo Larraín’s 2016 film Jackie, where he achieved a masterful outcome by using wide angle lenses very close to performers on Super 16mm.
Ten years ago, if you’d asked me what my least favorite set of camera handling techniques was, I’d have said wide angle lenses being shoved in the faces of story subjects. Distorting facial features and environments in the pursuit of some kind of edgy, over-caffeinated effect. I still don’t like that kind of approach — save for skate films, which have a lifetime Get Out of Jail Free Card for fisheye lenses. But well corrected wide angle glass, used with intent, can deliver uniquely immersive images.
I recently parted ways with my 28mm prime and replaced it with a 21 (again). I guess the next move is to get out there and get close.