In this seminar, Allan Weitz illustrates how to compose photographs that take maximum advantage of the creative and technical abilities of your lens system.
Great talk by Allan Weitz. Get a better understanding of different lens from zooms to primes and even specialty lenses like ultra-wides and tilt shift lenses.
A fisheye such as the one used in the classic car shot above can product very interesting results but it can also become abused if you use it too much. The effect of the wide angle lens pushed out the background.
Its the opposite of a telephoto lens that compresses a scene. Far too often the beginner photographer looks at lens as simply a way to bring subjects closer to them, but the lens choice is more like a brush choice to the experienced photographer.
Lenses change the scene and knowing the effects of each lens in your palette is crucial for bringing your vision to life.
Focal lengths are usually specified in millimeters (mm), but older lenses might be marked in centimeters (cm) or inches. For a given film or sensor size, specified by the length of the diagonal, a lens may be classified as a:
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Normal lens: angle of view of the diagonal about 50° and a focal length approximately equal to the image diagonal.
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Wide-angle lens: angle of view wider than 60° and focal length shorter than normal.
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Long-focus lens: any lens with a focal length longer than the diagonal measure of the film or sensor.[11] Angle of view is narrower. The most common type of long-focus lens is the telephoto lens, a design that uses special optical configurations to make the lens shorter than its focal length.