I can still recall the day I first held a camera. It was a Fujifilm 35mm point-and-shoot camera given by my dad. And since that day, I wasted countless film rolls just snapping away to my heart’s content. And that was my first encounter shooting with a wide focal length. However, I stop shooting after a while because I did not have the budget to pursue photography, and my parents at that time thinks that you can’t earn a living through photography.

Fast forward 23 years later, I am now a professional photographer. And I have not forgotten how cool shooting with the 35mm focal length was and I used it a lot (along with other wide-angle focal lengths) to create my contents. And today, I will share with you my all-time preferred wide lens and why I love shooting with wide lenses.

My all-time favourite lens

The Canon R5 + RF 15-25mm f/2.8 is an absolute combo.

Before I dive into why I love shooting with wide focal lengths, here’s my all-time favourite lens to shoot. Canon’s RF 15-35mm is an absolute workhorse in my opinion. This is by far my most used less whenever I do my photography and videography work. However, as someone who vlogs, its f/2.8 and lens stabilization have truly been a great help for me. I am the type of person that looks into lenses before deciding on the camera to shoot on. This is because lenses are a much larger investment and the good ones can really take you far.

#1 Provides an interesting perspective

Wide lenses give out a cool perspective depending on how you shoot. I normally love using wide lenses from a lower angle. This provides an interesting perspective on the subject. It sometimes creates distortion that can also serve as a leading line to lead the viewers’ focus to the subject in the photo. Here are 2 photos for reference.

The way I compose my portraits are heavily inspired by Platon and Annie Leibovitz. Both of them often use wide-angle lenses to tell a story be it using their subject or the background.

You can create interesting layer of depth using foreground when shooting with a wide lens.

Who doesn’t love a fun composition like this.

#2 Get more background into context

I love how a wide lens can provide me with more field of view especially when I am shooting a landscape photo. While shooting with tight lenses you are able to capture up-close details of a particular scene, you almost always would need a wide angle shot of the overall photo series.

Looking at the photos above, using a tighter focal length (of the left) can help focus more on the subject, however, only a part of the waterfall can be seen. Shooting on a wide lens (on the right) can better establish the setting and storytelling of the photo. We can see that the subject is standing on a rock that appears to be tiny and the waterfall is actually pretty huge. This gives the audience a better context of where the subject is.

My personal preference would be to use the wide shot (right) as the main photo and use the tighter shot (left) as a follow-up on the establishing shot when I’m doing a post on my socials. This would provide the audience with a better context in terms of storytelling wise.

Having a wide telephoto lens like the RF 15-35mm f/2.8 is great. I was able to establish 2 different types of shots just by using a single lens. Using the 35mm focal length for close-up portraits is really good. It does well not to create any distortion or heavy vignetting on the subject and yet still able the separate the background from the subject providing a sharp crips end result (photo on the right).

I also use a lot of wide focal lengths when shooting weddings. I am able to capture more in a frame thus being able to do more storytelling through the visual composition.

#3 Good for tight areas

Wide angle lenses have helped me a lot in my career as a photographer/videographer. There are so many times when I have to work in spaces where using anything above 50mm of focal length doesn’t make sense at all. Whilst shooting with a 50mm is still doable, I’m losing out on a lot of content and framing when it comes to small spaces.

The photo on the left (28mm) was taken in a local bar. I used a wider lens as the bar was not too big and there were people everywhere. Using a wider lens will help you get closer to the subject (without worrying people might block you) and you’re able to get a wider composition as well. Thus showing what is happening in the photo.

The photo on the right (24mm) was taken when I was doing some food photography for a local eatery. For this gig, I was only given a spot in the corner to photograph and it was business hours. I didn’t have the luxury of having a ladder or any sort of setup to let me shoot from the top down. Hence, using the 15-35mm lens has helped me. Shooting this photo with a 24mm focal length helped me to frame the shot without using any elevation tools. Moreover, the 24mm focal length is wide enough but does not give any form of distortion that might ruin the photo composition.

Conclusion

I love wide lenses, especially the 35mm focal length. It was the first lens I used when I started learning photography as a kid. That simple point-and-shoot camera gave me many great memories and shaped my growth as a photographer. I hope you enjoyed this blog. I’m excited to share again after being away for a while, and more content is on the way. Meanwhile, feel free to follow my social media. Your support inspires me to create more. Until next time, peace.

3 reasons why i love shooting with wide lenses

My all-time favourite lens

#1 Provides an interesting perspective

#2 Get more background into context

#3 Good for tight areas

Conclusion

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