Can someone explain when to use wide, med or tele lens

K

KennyJay

Active member
I have really benefited from this site. One thing that I need more understanding of is when to use your wide medium or telephoto lens. I have bought 14 lens in the last two months with 4 more on the way for my t2i. No, I'm not rich, ha ha, only two of them are new. Now that I'm laid off, I have the time to get to know my lens and yes, it is great.

I need to know when to shoot wide or break out the telephoto. My focus is narrative film, music videos and commercials. I'm thinking there are a lot of people on this site that need to have the answer to this question.

I did test my 14 lens today and will post the footage tomorrow. It been storming tonight here in St. Louis. My computer cut off twice. Every time that happen, its makes you jump like watching a monster movie. ha ha ha It just cut off again, man, that was scary. I'm going to bed. Good night.
 
Use a wide to fit everything in or gets deep depth of field

Use a medium for medium stuff

Use a long to fill the frame with a distant subject or isolate your subject with a narrow depth of field

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That is a simple summary of the mechanics, now in situations where you actually have choice

say you are in a park filming one person you can choose to be close to them with a wide or far away with a tele

that choice is the art of photography/cinematography

some cosiderations for stills and filming

shooting from close invades the subjects space which may appropriate for love or violence

shooting from distance can look 'distant'

typically I shoot something from a POV of where we are used to looking at it from unless I want to disturb the viewer (that took me years to learn!)

now shooting cuttable motion sequences it becomes more complex typically encompassing the question why with the camera here?

For example a crim on the run chased by a helicopter is would be sensible to have a top shot of that scene of the crim from the helicopters POV - but a top shot may be less justifyable in other cirumstances

of course rules are for breaking

now you have 14 lenses - hide 11 of them

with a full frame id do 90% of work with a 20, 50 and 135

on a S35 chip (7d) Id go with 16,30 and 80

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Learn you lenses so you can place your tripod on the ground and put a lens on the camera, the shot should be appropriately frame filling - before you look through the viewfinder


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KennyJay said:
I have really benefited from this site. One thing that I need more understanding of is when to use your wide medium or telephoto lens. I have bought 14 lens in the last two months with 4 more on the way for my t2i. No, I'm not rich, ha ha, only two of them are new. Now that I'm laid off, I have the time to get to know my lens and yes, it is great.

I need to know when to shoot wide or break out the telephoto. My focus is narrative film, music videos and commercials. I'm thinking there are a lot of people on this site that need to have the answer to this question.

I did test my 14 lens today and will post the footage tomorrow. It been storming tonight here in St. Louis. My computer cut off twice. Every time that happen, its makes you jump like watching a monster movie. ha ha ha It just cut off again, man, that was scary. I'm going to bed. Good night.
Click to expand...

Wide lenses have a larger field of view, a deeper depth of field, and distort space by stretching it out ("objects in mirror are closer than they appear") Objects will look further away with a wide angle lens, and if you want to get a close up with one you need to get right up on your subject. Telephoto lenses have a narrower field of view, magnify distant objects (you'll be further from your subject) have a shallower depth of field, and compress space...they make the background seem a lot closer to the subject, but also more out of focus.
 
From an artistic standpoint, if you have a choice of using any or all:
1) Telephoto creates a dramatic shot due to the crunching of depth and flattening of the subject. (Think Bruckheimer where someone is going somewhere important in slow-motion.) The foreground and BG will tend to blur due to this compression, enhancing the drama, even at higher f-numbers.
2) Medium tele or neutral tend to make people look better, and distorts less.
3) With a wide lens, bringing the camera very close to the subject can create a surreal or hallucinogenic effect.

Those are just a few off the top of my head.
 
Thanks Morgan, Ben, and Steven. Awesome answers. This is school for me. I excited about taking these notes out into the field to learn'em!
 
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