28mm / 35mm Lens - How To Get Better Shots

In this blog, I will share my tips for getting the most out of your wide-angle lens. Specifically, I am talking about the two most common focal lengths: 28mm and 35mm. Although there is a difference between them, the principles are the same.

Get Closer

There is a famous saying that if your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough. I think this depends entirely on the situation, and I wouldn’t necessarily use it as a blanket statement. On the whole, however, there is some truth to it.

When you’re shooting wide, you physically need to get close to your subject, whether it’s a street scene, a person, or a landscape.

The magic of wide-angle lenses lies in how they immerse the viewer in the photograph, and that can be achieved only when you, the photographer, are equally immersed. I understand that getting closer might seem intimidating to many people, especially when shooting in cities. That’s when I suggest starting tight and gradually working your way wider. For example, start with a 40mm lens. Once you’re comfortable with that, move to 35mm and then 28mm.

Finally, getting closer naturally removes many distractions and simplifies the composition. One of the biggest stumbling blocks when shooting wide is figuring out how to arrange everything in the frame. Getting closer makes that job much easier.

A Word On Cropping

To piggyback on the previous point, you can always crop. There is absolutely nothing wrong with cropping, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. That said, you need to understand the effect cropping has on your composition because it is very different from getting closer.

When you crop, you take the existing composition and simply punch in. The relationship between you and all the elements in the frame doesn’t change. When you physically get closer, that relationship changes because all the distances, angles, and perspectives change.

Original 35mm

Cropped

Moved Closer

Getting closer isn’t superior to cropping, and cropping isn’t superior to getting closer. They are simply different methods of telling a story. However, you need to understand the effect each one has.

When you get close to your subject with a wide-angle lens, you can make them appear larger than life and truly immerse the viewer in the scene. The viewer will feel as though they are standing right beside you. When you crop, the subject’s stature doesn’t change; they simply take up more visual space in the frame. The viewer will still feel like a distant observer.

Block the Lens

Using foreground elements is a powerful tool that can help clean up the composition, place the viewer within your photograph, and add depth.

This can take many different forms. You could shoot through a tree or have two people on either side of the frame while focusing on a third person farther ahead. You could shoot through a window or over a ledge. You could even place railings, benches, bottles, or almost any other object in the foreground.

Of course, taste plays a significant role, but this is something that will become more refined with time. Keep an eye on your aperture here. Although it might be tempting to go all the way to f/1.4, I suggest showing restraint and finding the right balance: out of focus, but still providing context.

Change Your Perspective

Most of our photographs are composed with the camera positioned somewhere between our chest and our eyes, meaning that we seldom change our perspective.

When shooting wide, even a slight change in angle or camera height can make a vast difference to the composition. There isn’t a specific rule about what you should do because it’s entirely subjective. The aim is simply to experiment.

Hold your camera above your head and point it down. Place it on the floor and point it up. Put it against a reflective surface, position it in the gap between two panes of glass, or even tilt it slightly. Have fun and experiment.

Shoot Into the Corner

Whenever you are photographing a building, an interior, or any other physical structure, it is good practice to shoot into a corner. Shooting into a corner is an effective way to add depth and create strong leading lines. In turn, this can transform a fairly mundane scene into something more interesting.

Use Contrast

Looking for contrast is a great way to improve your wide-angle photographs. Contrast can emphasise one part of the scene while hiding unnecessary details in another. It can also transform a chaotic mess into a clean, almost fine-art-like aesthetic. This approach won’t be for everyone, but it is worth exploring.

Use Negative Space

Find areas of negative space within your scene to help balance the image. Occasionally, a chaotic composition can work if all the elements align. More often than not, however, some negative space will help balance the photograph and give the viewer room to breathe.

Negative space can take many forms. It could be a clear sky, a shadow, a clean wall on a building, or even the side of a white van. I often look for these patches of negative space and try to build my composition around them.

Embrace Minimalism

This isn’t a blog about minimalism, so I will keep this final point short: less is more. Just because you can fit the whole world into the field of view of a 28mm lens doesn’t mean you should. Your primary role isn’t to include everything in the frame; it’s to remove everything that doesn’t add to the story.

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