Why use wide angle lenses for landscapes like this?

For various reasons. I have gone through them repeatedly, but here again, all at once:

1. The wide angle lens gives you a feeling of being surrounded by the environment. That is because of simple geometry – if I look left, lines I am travelling along will look horizontal, while ahead of me they look vertical.
2. I get more in.
3. I can get depth into the image (get close to something and you get the “close-far” depth effect).
4. It is easier to focus on “everything” – the wider the lens, the more extended depth of field.
5. It is easier to shoot slow – a 200mm lens may need 1.200th second to be sharp, while a 16mm lens may be able to do a sharp picture at 1.15th second.

That’s why I always carry my 16-35 lens (on a full frame camera).

I am not referring to beef, but to a picture I took today with a prime lens – and where I have cut through the subject’s face. Yes, you can do this and yes, it can result in good pictures.

For today’s image, I used a Nikon D3100 with the new 50mm f/1.8 lens – the new one, the one that does autofocus with the low-end Nikon bodies. If you are a Nikon low-end camera user (D40, D60, D3100, D5100, etc), then go get one today – run to your retailer, do not walk.

Why?

Because you can get selective depth of field and you can use available light.

Of course you can get selective depth of field with any lens, if you are close enough. Even at f/5.6, say, you can get quite a lot of blurring when you get close. No… closer. Like this:

Nice eh? Yes, she is beautiful, and the composition works – unorthodox, but it works, right? The use of available light also helps.

But f/2.8 is better. Less recognizable person in the background, and importantly in this picture, a faster shutter speed. F/2.8 looks like this:

You could even go to f/2.0 with a fast lens like the 50mm f/1.8. You would do that when you want even more selective depth of field – a blurrier background – or when you want a faster shutter speed or lower ISO. f/2.0 looks like this:

Or in Black and White, like this:

So you see, an affordable but good fast lens on an affordable camera can result in good photos.

I have a few indoors architecture tips for you today.

My living room (Photo: Michael Willems)

Shooting indoors architecture is tough. Light differences, low light, rooms that are too small and distorted… many challenges. But they can be overcome with a little attention. The way to do this is as follows: take your time and consider the following:

1. Shoot with a wide angle lens. This allows you “to get stuff in”.
2. But do not go crazy and make every closet look like a large room.
3. Expose for the outside.. i.e. do not overexpose the background. Else, you wil get windows that are too bright – so expose for those windows.
4. Now expose the inside sufficiently. Start by turning on inside lights.
5. You will probably also need flash – and you may well need flash exposure compensation (FEC), since walls are often light.
6. Bounce that flash!
7. Set your White Balance correctly. Consider using a gel on the flash to equalize light bulbs and flash.
8. Focus accurately, one third of the y into the image.
9. Avoid distortion. Shoot from 4′ above the ground, or consider shooting every so slightly upward. If you get perspective distortion, use Lightroom, Lens Correction method I explained a few days ago.

Simple. Once you know!

A concept that can help explain (and darer I say it, create) interest in images? Layering.

This means “dividing your image into visioble layers. You can do this by blurring parts of the image that are separate from the parts you want to draw attention to – i.e. by selective use of narrow depth of field.

Start with a fairly mundane image:

Now add a foreground layer:

We could have blurred the foreground – often, that works too. The foreground becomes a frame.

And now, one more: even more extreme – get closer to a larger object:

And finally, an image with three layers: skeleton 1, skeleton 2, and background:

Nice eh? And easy to do. Get close, select a large aperture, focus using one focus point.

Well, perhaps. What I mean in my tip of the day here is that viewpoint makes a difference. Avoid being “Uncle Fred” and always shooting from exactly 5.5 feet above the ground.

Look what a difference this makes. From this shot:

To this shot:

An entirely different feel. It is more like the road surrounds you; a much more three-dimensional view.

So whether it is up, down, unusually close, or rotated: do try to use less usual viewpoints for a more lively look to your images.