Definition

1. Noun:
   • A camera lens having a wider than normal angle of view (and usually a short focal length). It captures a broader scene than a standard lens, allowing more of the environment to fit into a single photograph.
   • The image produced by such a lens is characterized by being foreshortened in the center and increasingly distorted in the periphery. This means objects in the middle may appear normal, while straight lines at the edges of the frame can appear curved, and objects near the lens can seem exaggeratedly large.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • For landscape photography, a wide-angle lens is essential to capture the vastness of the scene.
  • The photographer switched to a wide-angle lens to fit the entire building into the shot from a close position.
  • You can see the distortion at the edges of the photo because it was taken with a wide-angle lens.

Advanced Usage

• "Ultra-wide-angle lens": A lens with an exceptionally broad field of view, even wider than a standard wide-angle lens, often producing more pronounced peripheral distortion.
  • The real estate agent used an ultra-wide-angle lens to make the small apartment look more spacious.
• The term is often used metaphorically to describe a broad, inclusive perspective.
  • The historian took a wide-angle lens approach to the subject, examining all social and economic factors.

Variants and Related Words

• Wide-angle (adjective): Describing the property of having a wide field of view.
  • She took a wide-angle shot of the city skyline.
• Fisheye lens (noun): An extreme type of wide-angle lens that produces a characteristic convex, highly distorted, circular image.
• Standard lens / Normal lens (noun): A lens with a field of view that approximates human vision, providing a contrast to a wide-angle lens.

Synonyms

• Short focal length lens (technical synonym, though not all short lenses are wide-angle for all formats).
• Broad-angle lens (less common variant).

Related Phrases and Concepts

• Field of view (FOV): The extent of the observable scene that is seen through the lens at any given moment. A wide-angle lens has a wide field of view.
• Barrel distortion: A common type of optical distortion associated with wide-angle lenses where straight lines bow outward, away from the center of the image.
• Exaggerated perspective: The visual effect created by a wide-angle lens where objects very close to the camera appear disproportionately large compared to objects farther away, enhancing the sense of depth.

Noun

1. a camera lens having a wider than normal angle of view (and usually a short focal length); produces an image that is foreshortened in the center and increasingly distorted in the periphery