If you’re interested in photography, chances are you’ll have heard the terms “wide-angle,” “telephoto,” “zoom,” and “focal length” being mentioned about. How they affect your images is important. Focal length is the distance from the optical center of the lens to the sensor. It’s measured in millimeters and the greater the number of millimeters, the longer the lens, and the closer your subject will appear to be.
Most compact cameras come with zoom lenses that can switch between wide- angle and telephoto views, something that depends on complicated moving parts. Interchangeable lens cameras have, rather obviously, lenses that can be changed depending on whether you want a wide-angle, standard, or telephoto view. Sometimes these are zoom lenses and sometimes “prime” lenses that have a fixed focal length.
Having a lens that zooms on a smartphone isn’t terribly practical, and, while we can digitally zoom toward a subject, we can’t digitally zoom away from one, which means that smartphone cameras tend to have lenses toward the wide-angle end of the spectrum.
Having a lens that zooms on a smartphone isn’t terribly practical, and, while we can digitally zoom toward a subject, we can’t digitally zoom away from one, which means that smartphone cameras tend to have lenses toward the wide-angle end of the spectrum.
Wide-angle lenses are awesome for some types of photography, but not so great for others. Have you noticed how you can easily squeeze most of a room into a photo taken with a smartphone camera, or you can photograph yourself among a group of your friends, holding the camera at arm’s length? And how close- up portraits can give people chins and noses that are comically large and out of proportion? That’s because smartphone cameras have wide-angle lenses.
We can step back a little so that the angle is “normalized,” and then crop your image to “get closer.”
We can step back a little so that the angle is “normalized,” and then crop your image to “get closer.”