Wide angle

A wide-angle lens creates a distortion in every photo. This distortion, is not acceptable to some professional photographers, especially in architecture because they create a tapered appearance of the building--owing to the basic fact that there are no distorted buildings and that buildings need to be captured in the most realistic appearance. In the end, depending on their editors, some photographers end up fixing the vertical and horizontal orientations and reduce distortions.

Some photographers, however, prefer wide lens to capture the entire architectural subject. Some even invest in an expensive wide lens to create this effect. In one article I read that a photographer does not need to have wide-angle lens just to capture the entirety of the structure. They say that there is one simple and inexpensive solution--just take a few steps back.  Well, this is possible if the structure is isolated and if it is located with adequate foreground where one can freely move around.

While there may be conflicting schools of thought in the use of a wide-angle lens, everyone would perhaps agree with me that wide lens is perfect for nature and landscape photos. Using a GoPro camera, I tried it in my worm's eye view shot of young pine trees in Camp John Hay in Baguio City. Needless to say, I was impressed with the tapered effect making the treetops appear to be converging on top, which I have always wanted to have.

Every camera lens has its purpose. You may get the ire of professional photographers for using a wide-angle lens for architecture, but this should not stop you to experiment. All I can say, wide lens are perfect for landscapes and nature photos like this photo of pine trees.