Telephoto and Wide-angle Lens
Telephoto lenses have the illusion of pulling the distant object nearer or effectively magnifying it. Telephoto lens also compresses near and far objects making them look closer than they really are, creating an illusion of shallow depth of field. Depth of field is the area that is in sharp focus in front and behind the object that the camera is focused on.
Most beginners always look for a telephoto zoom when shopping for a new camera. We often hear beginners asking how "far can your lens pull-in the image?"
The question is not how far or how near but rather to understand the characteristic of your telephoto or wide-angle lens and use it correctly.
 |
| Telephoto lens pulls in distant subject and "compress" the images. Used correctly it emphasizes the main subject to improve composition. |
When using a telephoto lens it magnifies the image. As a result it also magnifies vibration and your hand shake when tripping the shutter and this can result in blur or fuzzy pictures. Always use a tripod or some kind of support such as table or chair to support the camera when using a telephoto lens above 105mm focal length. Most people do not realise that many of their fuzzy and blur pictures are caused by their unsteady hand and not that the camera did not focus correctly.
Wide-angle lens is the opposite of the telephoto lens. It provides a broader viewing field than the human eye. It can be used to take picture of a wide subject in a tight spot.
A telephoto lens compresses space whereas a wide-angle lens deepens space; it makes everything seem further away from the camera. It also deepens depth of fields.
Wide-angle lens is not common with consumer digital cameras due to the tiny size of the image sensor or CCD in digital camera, making it expensive and difficult to manufacture. Wide-angle lens is quite common with 35mm format cameras. You can easily find 35mm cameras come with wide-angle zoom of 28mm to 105mm at a reasonable price.
 |
| Wide-angle broadens view and "increased space and distance" move closer to give a better composition |
Wide-angle lens is an exciting lens to use due to its wide-angle perspective. It is an ideal lens for landscapes and architectures photography. However, wide-angle lens is a difficult lens to master as your subject may turn out to be just a tiny dot in a mass of unwanted space on your picture or people at the corner of your picture may look bizarre and distorted. The pointer for using wide-angle lens is to think about the composition carefully beforehand and move in close for the impact and be careful of the objects appearing at the edges and corner of your viewfinder and try to use them to enhance the picture.
Special lenses such as shift lens or PC lens, fish eye lens, mirror lens or reflex lens will not be mentioned here as these lenses are not common and hardly required by avarage camera users. For digital cameras these lenses are even more difficult to find and hardly any of these are specially designed for consumer digital cameras.
 |
| Olympus, Zuiko 8mm F2.8 Fisheye lens |
Super wide-angle lens and fish eye lens are sometimes used to create panorama photo for 35mm film camera. However, digital camera user can create panorama photo using panorama software by stitching a series of photos taken with any wide-angle lens. Most digital cameras come with this panorama software bundled in the camera software CD. If you are shopping for a digital camera check that the new camera of your choice comes with this panorama or stitching software. Otherwise there are also several free version of this software available on the Internet though those provided by camera makers are easier to use with the images created with their own camera.
| 
