Wide angle/landscape

Haraldf

I'm an absolute beginner and enjoy using your cheat cards with my standard lens 18-55mm. I also got a Nikkor 14-24mm which I'll bring along for a 1-2 month travel in Utah/Arizona and then many canyons. Any cheat cards for this lens coming up? Any advice is much welcome. Thanks.

Moose

Hi @Haraldf, you can actually use some of the scenarios with from your 18-55mm set with your 14-24mm. More specifically the landscape/architecture, sunset/sunrise, real estate exteriors/interiors, fireworks and waterfall cheat cards. The settings for those scenarios should be compatible.

bruto

The technical aspects of that lens will be similar enough, and of course where it overlaps with the 18-55mm will be especially similar if not identical.

The main differences you'll find will be creative, I think. It can take a little practice to get comfortable with the increased field of view when you go very wide. You have to get used to incorporating a lot of sky and a lot of foreground into the composition, and to the exaggerated perspective. It can be very dramatic when well chosen, and of course when you want lots of inclusion, you'll get it. Make sure your foreground has some interest - if not objects, then patterns. You'll likely see more of it in your picture than your naked eye registers.

Perspective, which can be problematic at wider angles of the normal zoom, becomes more so. At any focal length, if you tilt the lens upward from level, you'll get some vertical perspective (buildings, for example, will taper toward the pyramidal). The wider you go, the more it happens, and with a very wide lens, unless you're looking for the effect, when you tilt the camera upwards, buildings, trees, people and everything else will appear tapered and elongated.

Remember that one way to handle the perspective issue, if you're not wedded to the 3 x 6 format, is to keep the camera level, swallow the unwanted foreground, and crop it out later.

The same perspective applies horizontally. Objects will appear deeper. Close faces will look thin with long noses. The effect on things whose geometrical shapes we think of as familiar can be very interesting and unsettling, especially if you start close. You can have great fun with things like cars, railroad trains, bridges, etc.

Depth of field will increase as focal length shortens. At 14 nearly everything will be in focus with little effort, and scenery will pop, as long as you remember to look closely at your foreground. It's very easy to miss branches, blades of grass, and things like that, and realize only afterwards that your view is spoiled by fuzzy close objects you did not even notice.

Objects on the horizon which might just be abstract blobs of bokeh at a long focal length will be small, sharp and recognizable at wider angles. That's great for scenery and many other things, but you must remember that the picture is going to include everything in the frame, so you'd better want it there.

Not long ago I retired my tired old 18-55mm, and got a 16-85mm lens. When traveling, I find myself cranking it right out to 16mm a lot. Nothing like a wide angle when you need it. I'm guessing when you get to those canyons you're going to be very glad to have a 14mm.

Haraldf

Hi,
Very helpful. Thanks a lot - I'll practice here in my home country, Norway, and hopefully get some good short "over there".