Angle of view – how much can you see?

With any lens angle of view has to do with how wide an expanse can be captured from any given camera position. Narrow angle lenses (which are also known as tele lens or long focus lenses) take in only a small section of a scene, but magnify it to fill the picture are. Wide angle lenses embrace considerably more territory and therefore, render each object in a scene proportionally smaller. The so called kit lens or normal lens (the standard lens usually supplied with a new camera) is a compromise between these two extremes. It encompasses more of any scene than a telephoto lens used at the same camera position, but still not as much as a wide angle lens.

It is convenient to call any lens whose angle of view is narrower than normal a telephoto lens. But telephotos, among themselves, vary a great deal in angle of view and the amount of subject area included. Medium telephotos have only mildly narrow angles of view, take in a relatively large amount of scenery and magnify a subject to moderate degree. Longer telephotos are narrower in angle, take in less and magnify more. Super long telephotos have the smallest angles of view and the greatest ability to enlarge a subject.

A similar situation exists among wide angle lenses. As angles of view get wider and wider (from medium wide angle lenses through to the super wide angle lenses), more and more subject matter is encompassed, and each object in the picture area appears smaller.

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