Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Wide-angle lens
In photography and cinematography, a wide-angle lens is a lens whose focal length is shorter than the focal length of a normal lens. For a 35 mm camera with a 24 by 36 mm format, the normal lens is 50 mm. A lens of focal length 35 mm or less is considered wide-angle.
In addition to giving a wider angle of view, the resulting image can also have perspective distortion.
Common wide-angle lenses for a 35 mm camera are 35, 28, 24, 20, 17 and 14 mm. These lenses will give a rectilinear projection.
Extreme wide-angle lenses normally do not give a geometric projection, and are called fisheye lenses. Common focal-lenghts for a 35 mm camera are 6-8mm (will give a circular image), and 15 or 16mm (will give a curvilinear, full-frame, image).
See angle of view for an example of an image taken by a wide-angle lens.
See also: film format, normal lens
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