Note in the first shot, I did angle the camera upward slightly to capture more of the ceiling which didn’t do much to the center of my frame, my horizon line, nor the ladies wandering down the aisle, but the horribly stretched man and walking woman in the corner, and then those vertical lines… When shooting any wide angle lens, one way to minimize optical distortion is to keep the lens level, especially in regard to your forward or backward roll (tilting the nose of your lens upward or downward).īelow are a couple shots visually explaining what I’ve mentioned above. I’ll call this, proximity distortion moving forward. The same lens, set to the same settings may not show the same levels of distortion (or may not be as noticeably pronounced) if, for instance, your subject is physically further away. Most high quality wide angle lenses will minimize barrel and mustache distortion, but you can’t escape physics in regard to physical proximity, and by this I mean subject distance, when captured around the edges or in corners of your frame. Some wide angle lenses (more common and often pronounced in lower cost, budget friendly optics) show something called mustache distortion, where if you took a picture of a straight line across your frame, the optics would distort it so that it would appear as a wavy line from one edge to the opposite as opposed to straight and square. Many lenses will show some level of both, along with various other forms of optical aberration. Telephoto focal lengths traditionally exhibit some level of pincushion distortion (think lines being pulled in toward the center of the image) while wider angles often suffer from what is called “barrel distortion” which would be akin to the lines in an image appearing as if there were almost a bubble pushing from the center of the image, toward the viewer, producing bowed out lines. Let’s look at the main culprit, and how to minimize and work within the limits of optical distortion.Įvery lens suffers from some form of optical distortion. This is where we can become challenged, and even frustrated by composing and shooting at such wide angles of view. On top of that, even if you level your camera perfectly, your frame edges are often subject to varying degrees of distortion which can really affect your frame. I feel that it is one of the hardest types of shooting to really excel at, mostly because you have so much more to pay attention to regarding composition and subject matter. Ultra wide angle shooting provides certain challenges from a photographer’s perspective, largely compounded by optical limitations. C’mon in for some shots and thoughts…īefore we get into the touchy feely bits, I want to share what I see as the pitfalls of this ultra wide lens (and to be fair all ultra wides). I have some other shots sprinkled in, but I want to give a bit of perspective when using this lens as a travel companion. I have had this lens for the better part of the year, and I’ve just returned from a trip to Portugal and Holland where I used this lens on the GX8 for my travel documentation needs. It is however, a pretty damn stellar performer. A substantial, weather sealed, tank like 14-28mm f/2.8 equivalent lens (in light gathering you FF fanatic naysayers, you) that costs a pretty penny, especially considering the Panasonic Lumix option at close to half the price, it’s not necessarily one for the budget minded shooter. Olympus answered that call with the m.Zuiko 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO lens. Panasonic saw the need for an ultra wide angle zoom lens from the very early stages of the Micro 4/3 format, and has offered a very solid 7-14mm f/4 lensfor years, but many system shooters wanted both a faster option, along with one that was environmentally sealed for outdoor work. Add to that, with various “crop” formats, the physical focal length needed to achieve these angles of view has to be remarkably short which provides other engineering challenges. It can be difficult to optically correct and transfer light onto these digital sensors which are far less forgiving than film ever was, especially outside of the center frame. Ultra wide angle options for every system, tend to be expensive and/or compromised.
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