Travel and Photography | Do You Need Ultra Wide Angle Lens?

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Taj Mahal | Agra| India | 24 mm Prime Lens

© 2014 Wazari Wazir | Merdeka Square | Kuala Lumpur | 16 – 35 mm Lens

Do you need UWA or Ultra Wide Angle Lens? Actually the real answer is it depends. It depends on your interest in photography, what kind of a subject that you like o photograph the most. Normally when we refer to wide angle, the standard for wide angle lens on full frame camera is 35 mm lens. The widest that people generally go is 24 mm or 20 mm.

So which one is Ultra Wide Angle Lens. Usually when we are talking about UWA lens, people normally refer to something like 16-35 mm, 17-40 mm, 14-24mm for full frame camera or somewhere around 10-20 mm / 11-16 mm for non full frame camera, and if you go wider than that, it will usually called as fish eye lens. (Note : There is also 10.5 mm and 15 mm for fisheye)

Anyway back to the question, the simple answer like I said is it depends. Do you like shooting landscape, architecture or more like general photography? If you are passionate about landscape and architecture and more than 50% or 70 % of your work is landscape and architecture, then you might wanted to get UWA lens.

© 2014 Wazari Wazir | Petronas Twin Towers | 16 -35 mm

Why? Especially for architecture, normal wide angle lens usually will not give you the angle that you want or you can’t get everything in the frame, due to the strutter of the building or because of it’s location. For an example if you wanted to photograph the tallest building in any country, like a Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia from a close distance, then you really need to get UWA lens, 16 mm the minimum, otherwise you have to step back a little far away to get everything in the frame, and when step back away, then you might not get the water fountain in your frame.

Same goes to landscape photography, as we all knew, landscape is so huge, normal lens will never be able to captured everything, so having UWA is a must.

© 2013 Wazari Wazir | Annapurna Rage From Sarangkot Pokhara | 50 mm Prime Lens

But sometimes if you don’t have UWA lens, 50 mm lens will do. Like the photograph of the Annapurna range above, were taken with just standard 50 mm fixed focus lens. It doesn’t mean that if you don’t have UWA lens, you can’t take a landscape picture, it’s just that you can’t get everything.

It is all depend on you priority, if you are casual traveler like me, doesn’t have any specific things to photograph exclusively, then having a standard walk around lens like 24-120 mm, 24-70 mm, 24 -105 mm, 24 -120 mm for full frame camera or something like 18-55 mm or 18-135 mm on non full frame camera is good enough for you to begin with, and after awhile, once  you know that you like photographing landscape and architecture the most, only then you need to make a new investment. Otherwise just use whatever available that you have to its full capacity.

On the other hand if you you like traveling here and there, and your main focus is more on human interest, then, you really don’t need UWA lens, standard lens like 24-70 mm / 24-105 mm/24-120 mm is more than good enough, UWA lens is not great for portrait or human because of it’s distortion, I mean I’m talking about preference and taste here, if you like your portrait to look a little bit unusual, distort, then what can I say but generally UWA lens is not an ideal lens for portraiture or human interest kind of photography.