Wide Angle – Macro Lense?
- This topic has 12 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated Aug 19, 2008 at 7:55 pm by
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At what point do you start seeing the warping in the photo. I am looking for the widest angle without the warping to take these building shots. My 18- 55 warps the edges quite a bit.
Thanks Zach, You answered the question with what I thought the answer was. I shot everything for years with a 50mm only and had a 100-400mm for any other shots and a 2x extension for real long shots. I always tried to open up the aperture all the way and keep it basic. That was with film and the digital thing had me thinking because I can shoot so much more.
I am thinking about getting a 50mm fixed to shoot the way I use to and keep it basic (or should that be 33mm?). But now I can shoot B&W and Color without the separate bodies.
Another question comes up. Do people still shoot with a yellow filter with digital when wanting black and white? Or do I just do the magic in Photoshop?
A further thought to Zach’s good reply: angle of view is a very subjective thing, also. I had a professional photog (documentary/photojournalist) as a customer one day and she did not like anything wider than 28mm. She complained about wide angle distortion in photographs several times but would throw on a 300mm tele without hesitation.
Did not catch the macro part of your question. Many prime lenses will allow you to focus closer in than zooms for close-ups. But the distortion on wide angle lenses becomes more noticeable the closer you get (big nose effect). True macro (magnification life size or greater) is a different critter.
The “prime lens” part answered what I meant to ask on that part of the question.
Unless you have a great suggestion on a have to have Macro that would take great bug and flower pictures – the one I cannot live without. I was going to try to keep my lens count low.
An extension tube or two on a 35 or 50mm prime may get you in the ball park of macro. Just what you might need for economy, versatility, and keeping angle of view distortion low.
What I was trying to bring out in the previous post is: distortion is often a matter of how close you are to the subject with wider lenses. To overcome distortion on a wide angle lens, you can try just moving away a little farther. But obviously one of the nice things about a wide angle is you can squeeze a wide angle view of a subject within a short distance–say a small room. That’s a great use of wide angle.
On landscape, the better lenses correct for that sort of thing around the edge. But it takes thicker lenses and more groups of glass, so they are expensive.
There are really a few issues that contribute to ” warping”-
Distortion caused by the optical formula of the lens- so barrel and pincushion which warp the image
Kevin –
Just to distill this down, if you are looking for a traditional walk-around lens for a modern consumer digital camera, probably you will want to look for a 35mm f2.8 AF.
However, one lens you should not overlook is the ultra-cheap 50mm AF f1.8.
Carter – I did get the D60. I’ll hold off a little bit to see the new that comes out. I broke out my old smoked damaged camera to look through and see what I use to see, the old 50mm is about equal to the new at 35mm. I can wait a little because I do have something that works.
I will hit the shops around here to see what is in the used category but will probably buy new because this is the primary way I like to shoot basically what you see is what you get.
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