The effect of wide lens in portrait photography
When we talk about portrait lenses, there is always the issue that wide lenses are not suitable for portrait photography and that lenses used for portraits should have a focal length greater than 50mm. Wide lenses tend to introduce distortion into images, and although this distortion is normal and natural for all subjects, the human eye is quick to detect it when it comes to portraits and people. This distortion can make the face or body of the human subject out of shape and sometimes even make the person ugly.
What is a wide lens?
A wide lens is a lens with a short focal length and a wide field of view. The focal length of wide lenses is usually around 35mm. Using this lens allows the camera to photograph a wider field than normal lenses. This feature has made it one of the most used lenses for architecture, landscape and urban landscape photography. The technique of taking a portrait photo with a wide lens, which is also called a peripheral portrait, is to place the subject at a suitable distance from the lens. In this way, the undesirable distortion of the face is prevented. Being too far from the center of the image also reduces the quality of the photo.
Portraits and wide lenses
Theoretically, we know that wide lenses can include more of the frame in front of the camera in a photo. This wider angle of view can show the viewer a larger view than what a telephoto lens captures and naturally simulates a closer image to the viewer than the angle of view of the photographer’s eye. Besides, the dimension of the image is clearer in the photos taken with a wide lens. Because the closer the subjects are to the camera, they are exaggeratedly larger, and objects further away from the lens sometimes appear much smaller than they really are. This is exactly the way the human eye treats different subjects.
On the other hand, wide lenses show different behavior regarding depth of field. Although we already know that one of the most important factors affecting the depth of field is the maximum opening of the aperture and the size of the camera sensor, wide lenses greatly affect the depth of field and reduce it. This means that when we use a wide lens, even if we use wide apertures like f/2.8, the depth of field is still so large that practically all the background is clearly visible in the image.
Is it possible to shoot portraits with a wide lens?
Most photographers use short telephoto lenses for portrait photography. But wide lenses are also capable of portrait photography. For this purpose, if portraits are taken with great accuracy and sharpness with these lenses, the result will be very beautiful and creative.
In short, avoiding photography with wide lenses will naturally keep you away from the problems and problems of these lenses. But for photographing human subjects such as portrait and wedding photography, using these lenses will allow you to have more variety in the albums you design. Especially if you are shooting outdoors and outside the studio environment, these lenses allow you to better capture the beauty of the landscapes you are photographing.