Wide angle lens

[Emma Bowman]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum and photography and would really appreciate some guidance. Is the SONY ALPHA 200 with a 18 - 70 lens a wide angle lens and is it any good? Would it take decent architecture shots please?

Really appreciate your feedback and knowledge.

Thank you.

Emma

[RockNGoalStar]

Hi Emma and welcome to CiC

Do you already have this camera? Or are you considering buying one? Do you have a budget in mind? That may help people to help you make the right decision.

Although I am not an expert in architectural photography, and although 18mm is reasonably wide, I have a feeling that you may want to go even wider. A lot of dramatic architectural photography that appeals to me is shot a lot wider, somewhere around the 10mm mark. I'm not saying that this is the case with all good architectural photos, I'm just saying that I like the ultra-wide angle shots.

I have the Sigma 10-20mm lens on my Nikon for architecture and landscape photos but, while it is good for those purposes, it's not really ideal for general use as it's too wide even at the long end (20mm). I have the 18-200mm for that.

So I guess it depends what you want to do. if you ONLY want the camera for architectural photography and nothing else then i'd say go wider. If you want to use the camera for other types of photography as well, such as portraits etc, then you may want to go for something with a bit more range (such as the 18-70mm that you mentioned).

There are a lot of helpful people on this forum with a lot more knowledge and experience than me so i'd wait to hear what they have to say on the matter before making any rash decisions

Cheers,

Tom

[ktuli]

Tom - do you really find your Sigma 10-20 good for architecture? I own that lens for my Canon and the barrel distortion on it is pretty significant at the 10mm end and still noticeable at the 20mm end.

Emma - Also, what kind of architecture shots are you looking to do? Pro architecture shooters would probably select a tilt-shift lens like this one from Canon. But the price we're talking there is a bit staggering, so if this is for hobby use, you'll likely stick with one with distortion and fix in PP.

Basically - just in case I've confused you on the distortion topic - a regular lens is likely to have some degree of barrel distortion - things at the edges of the frame will have a curve to them. In architecture photography, you want your building to be straight, so you either need a lens that can adjust for that in the field or you need to fix it PP.

Hope this helps.

- Bill

[FrankMi]

Hi Emma, cameras in the price range of the A200 tend to not have very wide angle lenses. Wide angle lenses for DSLR's tend to be fairly expensive, often times considerably more expensive than the camera body. The A200 is a good camera but it is not designed for architectural photography, it has an image sensor that is about 2/3 the size of a 35mm camera so even an 18mm lens opening is not going to provide a very wide angle of view.

I would go to a camera store and look through the lenses of several cameras in your price range and see which ones give you the angle of view you think you need for your anticipated shooting needs. Even then, as Bill says, you can expect to have to do some post processing if the image has to have straight lines, as true architectural images do.