Beyond the Frame 20/
Focal lengths. What are they and how do we use them? With examples from India and Thailand.
Focal Lengths
Following on from last week, Monica asked what factors influence my choice of focal lengths. It’s an excellent question.
It’s safe to assume that most of us know what focal length is but here’s my simplified definition so we’re all on the same page. The focal length, given in millimetres, indicates a lens’s angle of view — or, more correctly, field of view. A lens with a low number such as 16mm or 24mm has a wide field of view. A high number, such as 135mm or 200mm indicates a much narrower field of view.
I won’t go into the mechanics of focal length calculations. There’s a Wikipedia page if you really want to know the mathematics but I can’t promise it will help.
A quick example
Here’s a picture of Grand Central Station in Manhattan. If I was to remain in exactly the same position, fix my camera to a tripod and attach lenses with different focal lengths, the camera would “see” the field of view indicated by the coloured…
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