One of the best things about a wide-angle lens is that it allows you to get gorgeous, sweeping views of a landscape.
With other lenses, it's difficult - if not impossible - to create a photo that captures the essence of being outdoors and seeing a vast landscape with your own eyes.
In fact, if you flip through a landscape photography magazine or peruse landscape photos online, the vast majority of them will have been taken with a wide-angle lens.
In the video above, Nigel Danson outlines the virtues of using a wide-angle lens for landscapes.
As a bonus, he also treats us to some instruction on how to use a wide-angle lens.
The video is highly informative (and gorgeously produced, I might add...), so have a look and learn a little something about taking your landscape photography to the next level!
Below, I've offered up a couple of must-have tips for wide-angle landscapes.
Editor's Tip: See what your landscape photos look like as fine art.
Use a Wide-Angle Lens to Highlight the Foreground
When you think about the different areas of a landscape photo - foreground, midground, and background - think of them like parts of a book.
The foreground is the introduction, the midground is the climax, and the background is the ending.
Together, these disparate areas come together to form the story of the landscape you're photographing.
With a wide-angle lens, you can better highlight the foreground to make the image more inviting to the viewer.
In the example above, the use of a wide-angle lens allowed the photographer to incorporate the beautiful texture of the rocks in the foreground.
That, in turn, invites the viewer into the shot, giving our eyes something to follow into the midground and on into the background as well.
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Use a Wide-Angle Lens to Focus on the Details
Another prime benefit of using a wide-angle lens for landscape photography is that you can show off the finer details of the landscape, particularly in tight areas.
The slot canyon shown above, for example, isn't exactly a wide-open vista. That means that the wider angle of view of a wide-angle lens is the perfect tool for capturing the beauty of landscapes like this.
Better still, you can use a wide-angle lens to get down low to the ground and show off things like rocks, plants, flowers, and other elements that might otherwise go less noticed in a landscape photo.
Be sure to watch the full video above to get more wide-angle landscape photography tips!