Close-Up Wide-Angle

Get stunning results with this technique for creating powerful, graphic scenic images

Text And Photography By Rob Sheppard

Wide-angle lenses can be employed when shooting close-ups for a unique approach to working with foreground elements, unusual perspectives and extended depth of field. These combinations can create some of your most dynamic landscape images. Above: In Big Pine, California, the perspective of a wide-angle plays with the leading lines and interesting composition of this tree in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest.

Very early on in my career, I heard a "rule" in photography: "Don't use wide-angles up close." The conventional wisdom was that you shouldn't use a wide-angle lens up close because it would distort the subject or make it unflattering. At first, I paid attention to that alleged rule. I certainly didn't want to go against photographers who seemed to know a lot more than I did. And, to be honest, I couldn't afford very wide-angle lenses because, in that pre-zoom era, you had to buy a separate lens for every focal length you wanted to shoot with.

In Point Dume, Malibu, California, the close-up wide-angle technique and a low angle of view make a field of giant coreopsis flowers pop against a cloudless sky.

When I first bought a 24mm wide-angle lens, I was excited with what I saw. It gave me pictures that were amazing. It offered a perspective that was better and far more interesting than what I had seen with a 28mm lens. That seemingly small difference of 4mm translates to a substantial 14% wider lens. Suddenly, I had sweeping landscapes with extensive foregrounds and big skies. The images floored me. I started photographing more close-ups, and I thought what I really needed was a macro lens. It never occurred to me that I should use my 24mm lens for close-ups. Shooting with the macro did get me in very close, but I was missing context and environment around my subjects. I decided to try my 24mm up close instead of the macro. In those days, most wide-angle lenses didn't focus very close, so I had to get an ultrathin extension tube. (Such tubes don't work with modern lenses, nor are they available anymore.) I got some wild and crazy results.

Ever since then, I've always wanted to push what can be done with wide-angle lenses up close. I'm not talking simply about true close-up and macro shooting, though that's part of it. I'm interested in any shot that brings me close to a subject, whether I'm shooting a flower or a landscape.

Yes, wide-angles up close can give a look that appears distorted, but technically that's usually not true distortion. What you're seeing is an extreme rendition of perspective because of how close you are to the subject, and that extreme look can be dramatic.

Paintbrush flowers in Zion National Park, Utah, are separated from the background thanks to the close-up wide-angle method combined with a fill-flash.

Now I love to shoot up close with wide-angle lenses. For 35mm full-frame format, that would be less than 35mm; for APS-C format, that's about 20mm to 25mm and less; for Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds, that's any focal length less than 17mm. And the shorter the focal length becomes, the stronger the wide-angle effect you see. I've experimented with every wide-angle focal length from full-frame fisheye to standard wide-angle, and they all do interesting things up close. Here are some reasons why you might want to shoot with a wide-angle lens up close.

1 Perspective. Perspective is the way that objects change size as they recede in distance from you. The classic example is a line of telephone poles going off into the distance. The poles get smaller with distance, and that's perspective. Perspective changes when those size relationships start changing, and that occurs when you get close with a wide-angle lens. It's not the lens that's causing the perspective change, but your position relative to the subject or other objects in your photo. The lens allows you to see a wider view from that position, which changes how we perceive perspective.

The foreground gets big and the background gets small. This allows you to change the size relationships of objects in your photo. Photographers often think about using less depth of field to make a background softer so it doesn't compete with the subject. With a wide-angle lens up close, you can make the background much smaller, which may help the subject stand out better, and you can also make it so small that you can get a big area of sky to put behind your subject, also helping the subject stand out.

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