Wonderful Wide Angles


I love to use wide angle lenses, they allow the veiwer to see so much more, and give the illusion of space and freedom.

I have recently been involved in a project for a design company who were putting together a brochure for a property development company. The brief was to photograph an apartment, near Nottingham, that was part of an exclusive development. I have photographed this type of building on many occasions, and was aware that on the most part, they tend to be small and pokey.

This apartment was very pleasant, much bigger than I was expecting, but still not exactly spacious, I was going to have my work cut out if I was to make this place look as appealing as the market value led you to believe it was.

I had packed a couple of wide angle lenses, a 17-35 f2.8, a real work horse of a lens, and my 12-24 f4-5.6, a superb piece of glass that I am using more and more.

I initially tried the 17-35, but I knew that optically it is rather poor at the edges, and it just wasn't quite wide enough anyway, so out came the 12-24.

Suddenly this small cosy flat becomes a much more spacious luxury apartment. The problem is that wide angle lenses tend to bend straight lines, but with careful use you can minimise distortion by keeping the camera as level as possible and not having articles too close to the lens. These problems were overcome by using the spirit level built into my tripod to ensure the head was level, and by some careful furniture arrangement.

The living room and bedrooms were not so much of a problem, but the bathrooms, especially the en-suite, were fairly tight for space.

As you can see from the picture of the bathroom , the basin is a little distorted, but as my camera is fairly level it is not unpleasant.

I must admit, I really enjoyed this project, some archtectural jobs can be incredibly tedious, but the quality of the apartment, and the challenge, really made this for me. Best of all the designers loved the images.