The Main Differences Between Short-focus Lenses, Telephoto Lenses And Wide-angle Lenses

1、The main difference between short-focus lens and telephoto lens

Viewing angle and depth of field

A short-focus lens has a wide viewing angle and a large depth of field, making it suitable for photographing landscapes or large scenes; a telephoto lens has a narrow viewing angle and a small depth of field, making it suitable for photographing distant objects or performing portrait dissections.

Volume and weight

Short-focus lenses are usually smaller and lighter than telephoto lenses, making them easier to carry and shoot on the go.

Sense of picture

Due to the small viewing angle of a telephoto lens, the picture has a sense of compression, and it can capture the effect of near objects being larger and far objects being smaller. It is suitable for shooting sports events, wildlife, etc.; while the picture of a short-focus lens expands, and foreground objects will appear larger than they actually are.

Photographing sports events with a telephoto lens

Imaging effect

The telephoto lens has a good light spot background and is suitable for scenes such as portrait photography that require a weakened background; the short-focus lens emphasizes depth of field and can clearly show the foreground, middle and background, making it suitable for scenes such as landscape and architectural photography.

Effects of hand tremor

Due to the long focal length of the telephoto lens, it is more affected by hand shake, and may require a tripod or better handheld stabilization technology; while the short-focus lens has lower requirements for this and generally does not cause any major problems.

2、The main difference between short-focus lenses and wide-angle lenses

Short-focus lens and wide-angle lens are often used as synonyms in many occasions, but in fact their definitions are not exactly the same.

A short-focus lens is a lens with a focal length shorter than that of a standard lens. In other words, for a 35mm full-frame camera, a lens with a focal length shorter than 50mm is a short-focus lens.

A wide-angle lens is a special lens, and its characteristic is that after the rays pass through the lens from the object, they will be greatly scattered. This scattering will greatly enlarge the picture, thus creating an extremely wide viewing angle, which is larger than the normal human eye. Generally speaking, lenses with a focal length of less than 35mm are considered wide-angle lenses.

Wide-angle lens shooting effect

So, strictly speaking, the range of a short-focus lens is wider than that of a wide-angle lens. All wide-angle lenses are short-focus lenses, but not all short-focus lenses are wide-angle lenses. This mainly depends on the lens design. The image of a wide-angle lens may be distorted, especially an ultra-wide-angle lens, while a short-focus lens emphasizes comprehensive performance and is relatively free to use.