Composition 5 - Camera Angles and Focal Length

It doesn't matter what sort of camera you use, but following a few simple guidelines can generally improve your photos. In this tip we will talk about "Camera Angles and Focal Length". In some respects this topic can be rather confusing, but it is essentially how little or how much of your subject is captured by your camera, and from what angle.
If you take an image of your subject from a distance and the scene contains lots of other potential subjects, it is called a "Long" shot. The focal length of your lens would generally be in the medium range, depending on the distance from the subject. If you were closer to the subject and wanted to obtain an equivalent image, you would have to use lower focal length (wide angle lens), but the resulting image would have less foreground. That is called a "Wide" shot.
While the tendency is to position your subject in the middle of the image, using the Rule of Thirds can often give a more pleasing image. In the example above, the Leading Lines technique has been used, passing through one of the Rule of Thirds intersections instead.
If you take an image where your subject occupies most of the scene with minimal other potential subjects, it is called a "Medium" shot. The focal length of your lens depends on your distance from the subject and the perspective that you desire. Using a lower focal length lets you get closer and increases the depth of field, while a longer focal length means you can be further away but the depth of field is decreased. This is where a zoom lens can be rather useful.
In this example, a lens with a longer focal length (telephoto lens), taken from further away, was used so that some of the foreground detail could be seen from a higher camera angle. As a result, the depth of field is flatter.
If you take an image of only your subject and exclude other potential subjects, it is called a "Close-up" shot. As for the Medium shot above, the focal length of your lens depends on your distance from the subject and the perspective that you desire. Using a lower focal length lets you get closer and increases the likelihood of having converging verticals or other effects. Using a longer focal length will reduce the depth of field and may result in foreground objects being out of focus.
In this example, a lens with a longer focal length was used, in an attempt to keep the verticals straight, albeit without complete success. Using a digital camera that has a quality zoom lens with a range of focal lengths can provide you with a vast number of options for composition.
If you would like to see some examples, simply click on the following links that will take you to Google Search: Long Shot Images, Medium Shot Images, Close-up Shot Images. This provides a much wider range of images than we could show here.