Nikon D7000 manual Field of View at Various Focal Lengths

364 David Busch’s Nikon D7000 Guide to Digital SLR Photography

great when you want to emphasize that lake in the foreground, but problematic when your intended subject is located farther in the distance.

■Super-sized subjects. The tendency of a wide-angle lens to emphasize objects in the foreground, while de-emphasizing objects in the background can lead to a kind of size distortion that may be more objectionable for some types of subjects than others. Shoot a bed of flowers up close with a wide angle, and you might like the distorted effect of the larger blossoms nearer the lens. Take a photo of a family mem- ber with the same lens from the same distance, and you’re likely to get some com- plaints about that gigantic nose in the foreground.

■Perspective distortion. When you tilt the camera so the plane of the sensor is no longer perpendicular to the vertical plane of your subject, some parts of the subject are now closer to the sensor than they were before, while other parts are farther away. So, buildings, flagpoles, or NBA players appear to be falling backwards, as you can see in Figure 11.10. While this kind of apparent distortion (it’s not caused by a defect in the lens) can happen with any lens, it’s most apparent when a wide angle is used.

■Steady cam. You’ll find that you can hand-hold a wide-angle lens at slower shutter speeds, without need for vibration reduction, than you can with a telephoto lens. The reduced magnification of the wide-lens or wide-zoom setting doesn’t empha- size camera shake like a telephoto lens does.

Table 11.1 Field of View at Various Focal Lengths

Diagonal Field	Focal Length at	Focal Length Needed to Produce
of View	1X Crop	Same Field of View at 1.5X Crop
107 degrees	16mm	10.5mm
94 degrees	20mm	13mm
84 degrees	24mm	16mm
75 degrees	28mm	19mm
63 degrees	35mm	23mm
47 degrees	50mm	33mm
28 degrees	85mm	56mm
18 degrees	135mm	90mm
12 degrees	200mm	133mm
8.2 degrees	300mm	200mm