On Thu, 15 Mar 2001 22:13:23 -0500, "Steve Sakellarios" wrote:

>I'll be in the minority here. But like many things some shooters seem to
>rave about (like steadycams and shoulder mounts and XLR modifications for
>digital camcorders--which end up going into the camera mini anyway), I've
>never found much use or interest in wide angle lenses, either in photography
>where I started, or in video. I don't like the distorted look, especially
>for people, and I rarely feel I can't get a wide enough shot. The wide
>setting on most lenses is more than enough to benefit from the low
>camera-shake/high depth of field offered by shooting wide-angle, for me.
>Personally, if it was me that was enamoured of the idea, it would end up
>being another thing I thought I couldn't do without that would get used
>twice and sit on the shelf (with my still photography mirror lens and
>glidecam and portable blue screen and lots of other stuff I read about in
>ads, if I'd kept 'em all.)
>Steve

From my photo days, I discovered that people fall into
two types: "WA-folks", and "tele-folks", with the majority
(especially beginners) falling into the latter. Those
of us who fall into the former see wide-angle, and enjoy
its many advantages: the ability to shift the image "look"
with minor position and angle changes (we are a lazy
lot...! ;-), the ability to shoot without having to have
an eye glued to a VF, the ability to shoot hand-held and
get steady images, the ability to shoot with lots of
nice smooth camera-motion hand-held, the ability to shoot
with little thought about where to focus (that "laziness"
again...;-), and the ability to show the "subject" in
context (actually, *everything* within the frame is
"subject", something not often understood by the
"tele-folks"...;-). The WAs stay on my camcorders, and
I would feel very limited by not being able to use "the
other half" of the FL range, which extends from the
"normal-lens" view at the short end of the unaided
camcorder zoom range, through WA, full-frame fisheye,
to full-circle fisheye (where you can REALLY show the
"world" and the inter-relationships of its parts...!;-).