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Wide Angle or Not Wide Angle
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MMX wrote:
A DSLR is an expensive thing, it´s not a can of beer which you can throw away if you don´t like the taste and buy a different one. If I´m about to spend several hundreds I simply must know what do I want to do, what I expect and what type of lens will do the job for me.
Why do you think i asked the question in the first? Do you think i want to throw away my money OR, and this is the important bit, find out what i need to know. Yeah you dazzled me with your math and explanation and i was thinking up until the last part how helpful your reply had been. Now all i see when i see your replies is how conceited and big headed you really are. I have thanked you for what you wrote, the explaination was simple enough for me to understand right away and i’m better for it.
But i think your missing your own point here. Yeah their expensive, their not cheap and i want to pick the best lens for my money. So now that we’ve gone full circle and we’re back to the start again, you see your arseholeish comment at the end of your first post was not needed. I’m a beginner, this is the beginners thread and from what i know of you you teach a class in photography, i would love to see how many people would stay in your class or let alone pay you to speak to them in such a manner, teachers are meant to be patient, helpful and informative, you seem to have mixed up patient and helpful with short tempered and ignorant. While you are informative, it looses something when you bring people down because they dont know everything.
I recommend you stay out of the beginners section if you dont like listening to people who dont know everything like you to think you know.and also let me add a PS: Since you like analogy i have one for you. You attitude to beginners is like a teacher in junior infants calling the kids useless because they dont know the A B C’s and their 2 times tables. And saying they dont deserve to be in school.
Regards
DaveThe OP’s question was a reasonable one. The lenses he mentioned could be classed as wide angle or not depending on the crop factor of his camera. A beginner would not be expected to know this, so it’s actually a good question for a beginners forum.
I’ve noticed over the years, firstly in music and more recently in photography, that often the people who seemingly have all the technical knowledge (or can copy and paste from the internet) don’t have the creativity or talent to back it up. Not saying this applies in this case of course. :wink:
i like how your mind works brian :)
Be prepared for a nice backlash about his work now.
God forbid i’d wanna increase my knowledge of photography by asking questions :)edg3 you already have a camera, don´t you? As it´s a DSLR, it must have some lens attached to take pictures, right? And if you already own a lens, how did you decide whether to buy it or not? If I offered you this camera while telling you it has a wide angle lens, would you buy it?
I never said that you had to know everything. But the problem is that you don´t know anything at all (at least about lenses) while the relationship between focal length and angle of view is one of the most basic principles in photography, it describes the way how the photo will look like. Moreover when the answer is as simple as typing “wide angle lens” and letting Google search it, not doing so is much less excusable than not knowing the principle itself.
Imagine that you are looking through a paper tube. If the tube is let´s say 100 mm long, you will see a circle. If the tube is 300 mm long, you will see a circle that will be much smaller. Why? And what exactly does it mean when the circle is smaller?
It´s all about common sense which helps you understand how things work, nothing more, nothing less (To Brian: with crop factor it´s the same).“First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?”
That’s great entertainment! :wink:
Fair play MMX for defending his views as it seems he has very little support.
Who are you to say i know nothing about it at all? I was asking a question about a lens and you come in on your high horse to judge me.
Let me quote to you what one camera book i own say about wide angle lenses and this is what i was basing my question on.
A regular wide-angle lens (as opposed to a “super wide”) is around 24mm to 35mm,
and it’s just about a must if you’re shooting landscapes, because the wide aspect takes
in more of the scene (think of how much more wide-screen video takes in—it’s kind of
like that). Wide angle is also very popular for shooting environmental portraits (the type
of images you see in magazines when they’re doing a feature on a celebrity, politician,
or a business exec, where the portrait takes in a lot of their surroundings). For example,
if you’re shooting a fi reman in the fi re station, with wide angle, you include a little, or
a lot, of a fi re truck in the shot, as well. They’re also great anytime you want to create
a view of something—just get in real close and things get interesting. You can buy
wide-angle zooms (which are what I prefer) that zoom from wide-angle to normal (like
a 24–70mm), or even a super-wide zoom that goes from 12–24mm. I GRAB THIS LENS
FIRST WHEN…I’m going to shoot landscapes using a non-full-frame camera body.see why i asked the question? now this is a widely publish photography book.
The Digital Photography Book Volume 3 Page 58 if you wanna look it up.
Now look back up at the first topic and see why i asked what i asked. Both lenses i put up, both fall in the category of what this book told me of wide angle.
I’ve also noticed that no one else has come here and been as dickish about the whole thing as you. I’m sure your a great photographer, but your attitude to others is piss poor. You say you knew all this stuff when you started photography, but where did you learn it. Overheard? Told? Taught? Read? I’m certain you werent born with the knowledge but i’m sure you think you were.You seem to be missing a very important and valuable point here, you assume i know nothing, when all i wanted to know was would either of the lenses, be usable, as wide angle. Now you bombard the topic with trivial messages to justify your first comment.
Hes only defending his view because his ego wont allow him to admit that even though he started off helping, how he basically insulted me, just so he could sound superior, was wrong. Your opinionated, stuck up and whatever good you could do by sharing your knowledge comes with the price of having to listen to you inflate your ego more and more.
And comparing yourself to Hannibal Lector… you sure thats the road you wanna go down?one of the purposes of the forum is to ask questions – there are plenty of kind folk that will offer knowledge – if you have a dslr it shows me you are keen to learn and grow photographically and whats wrong with wanting to travel light aswell. keep asking questions Dave but a hint sometimes the answer might be there as others may have already asked – i realised this after a while when i started out on the forum. Still a repeated question certainly wouldn’t stop me helping a new member if I can.
Funny, i thought the initial part of MMX response was quite informative but the rant at end, if sarcastically meant, did come across quite nasty. if someone thinks they know it all maybe they should take a step back or find another pursuit
on the lens options did you get 18-55 lens with camera – the 18 end is a good angle to start for landscapes – a 15-35 or 17-35 is another option to buy – if you have the money or can pick up good second hand then the 10-20 will give you more extreme wide angle options
yeah i have the 18-55mm and its the one i use the most. I’m not looking for extreme wide angle as i can use 2 shots at 18mm and merge them to one in photoshop easily enough.
I agree the start is very helpful, told me everything i needed to know. and if he’d stopped there he’d be my best friend.
I’m looking around for an 18-200mm found a sigma one which will do me perfectly for all i need.
Green Meanie wrote:
That’s great entertainment! :wink:
Fair play MMX for defending his views as it seems he has very little support.
edg3:
“Who are you to say i know nothing about it at all?”
Learning about photography is like building a house; if you don´t have the foundations, you have nothing.
“A regular wide-angle lens (as opposed to a “super wide”) is around 24mm to 35mm”
” both fall in the category of what this book told me of wide angle”Yes, sure they do, so why did you have to ask it? It would be easier to understand if the book explained not only “how” but also “why”, but I don´t see any reason to be confused, both 24mm and 28mm lenses are wide angle and the book says it as clearly as possible.
Btw super wide are not opposed to wide, the set of super wide lenses is a subset of all wide lenses. Opposed to wide lenses are long focus lenses or telephoto lenses (most of long focus lenses are telephoto lenses, but not all).“where did you learn it”
Most information I found on the Internet, few years ago when I lived with my parents I was also reading magazines (father was a photographer so from time to time he bought some) but in magazines I learned mostly about composition and exposure, no technical information (it was in the pre-digital era anyway).
If you want more specific advice; look at professional photos (or any photos you like), study exif information, try to think what equipment the photographer used and why and then try to imagine how would the photo look like if he used different equipment or settings. These are the basic steps that help you determine what photos do you want to take and what equipment you should buy (so obviously you should do this before you buy something).
Later when you narrow your choice you can start reading reviews, look for sample photos, then go to a camera shop, try it and if it´s what you expected, buy it.
Nothing difficult, nothing complicated, no assistance needed. You can learn all this without spending a single cent.PS: Hannibal Lecter was a genius, people just need to understand what he did :P
I’m trying to get myself a foundation in photography. and thats why i asked.
You know out of all your comments thus far thats the least obnoxious one and possibly the most helpful.
When i read up on them both i had concerns about the 24mm, and when i wrote the topic i wasnt very clear on this. I was more wondering which was the best of the two overall including wide angle.Hannibal was a genius but he was also insane!
Bar your, arrogance, i found most of what you said helpful, useful and, i did enjoy the rant i had myself :) and we gave some people some entertainment, however i would say, for all your knowledge, you’ve very little interpersonal skills, far as i’ve seen.
I appreciate everyones help with this topic and now i can make a more informed decision on what i’m gunna buy.edg3 wrote:
I’m trying to get myself a foundation in photography
No, that would be perfect, but you´re not doing this. You´re asking us to build them for you and that´s what makes the difference :wink:
And still can´t imagine what concerns could you have about 24mm lens, when used with full frame body, it´s exactly on the border between classic wide angle and super wide angle which makes it the most used lens for landscape photography.
i was looking for information from one of the best sources i know. not asking you to build anything for me.
I’d read about the lens, mixed reviews, some said they were noisy, slow focusing, but other said they were amazing and one of the more overlooked gems of the canon collection. Some said they were good wide angle others said mediocre.
Most of what i know about photography comes from books and the internet as i dont buy magazines. I was hoping to hear from someone or someones who maybe owned one, or both of the lenses and see what their opinion on them was.
Questions are how we learn, you can read and read but nothing better then first hand knowledge which was what i was hoping for here.
Your explanation on the first topic explained it perfectly but didnt tell me anything about the lenses themselves. which is what i was looking for to.But you didn´t ask anything about their quality or performance, you asked whether they were wide angle or not. And to determine this I don´t need to own them or have any kind of personal experience, I just look at them and see it (even if you don´t). If you ask whether a lens is wide angle, I can only say “Yes, it is” or “No, it´s not”.
If you say “Your explanation on the first topic explained it perfectly but didnt tell me anything about the lenses themselves” then there are two possibilities; either you didn´t understand my answer or you wanted to know something different than you asked.
If you wanted to know something about their focusing speed or image quality (which is a normal question) then you should´t ask if they were wide angle because a) it made your question sound silly and b) the answer didn´t give you the information you were looking for.
Remember, you are only going to get the right answer if you ask the right question. If you don´t, you´re just wasting time – yours and ours. Moreover when you are a beginner, redundant information will only confuse you.So next time when you want to know something:
a) think what exactly you want to know
b) think if the answer requires personal experience*
c) search it anyway
d) if you don´t find it (in most cases you will), once again think what exactly you want to know
e) ask the question while trying to be as precise as possible – it will save our time and increase the chance that we will give you the information you are looking for*The b) part is not going to give you a better answer but it is going to teach you to be more self dependent – asking people to give you answer that you can find yourself is like calling a fire brigade to put out a barbecue grill; of course they can do it for you, but you should only call them when you can´t do it yourself, otherwise they would be receiving calls every 5 minutes.
PS: Don´t overestimate personal experience, what one photographer likes, another one doesn´t. Everyone has different priorities. So if I say I like this lens it doesn´t mean that you will like it too.
MMX wrote:
If you say “Your explanation on the first topic explained it perfectly but didnt tell me anything about the lenses themselves” then there are two possibilities; either you didn´t understand my answer or you wanted to know something different than you asked.
I also didnt expect attitude for asking a question either. I believe a question should be met with an answer, and if its in the beginners zone, it shouldnt be also met with attitude and arrogance.
I understood what you said, it did explain alot to me, a little detailed but not to much.
I did want to know more then i asked, which i was going to ask at a later stage. I was hoping someone would give a personal experience with either lens and i could judge on that. No matter what my original question was, it didnt warrant your what i can only call over reaction to my question. If you dont like questions, stay out of the beginners zone, if you wanna give answers give answers, if i wanted your personal opinion on my question i’d have asked for it.Dave (edg3):
There is some good information above but most of it sounds like technical waffle to me….
I see you live in Slane, Co.Meath. I’m living 10 minutes away in Drogheda.
Have been making pictures 13 years now and own loads of lenses of different types. If you want to meet up at Slane bridge or something I can show you a few lenses. I could show you the differences between them and hopefully help you to decide which lens would be best for the type of landscapes you would like to take
Regards
Martin
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