When is a lens considered ultra-wide rather than just wide-angle?
Asked 7/15/2010
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I often see lenses described as wide-angle or ultra-wide. Is there a commonly accepted cutoff for when a lens becomes ultra-wide, especially in 35mm/full-frame terms? How does that translate to APS-C cameras?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
16y ago
2 Answers
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Wikipedia says lenses below 24mm focal length (in 35mm-equivalent) are considered ultra-wide. Personally I'd say that the field of view becomes ultra-wide when people near the border of the picture start to look significantly wrong.
Originally by user112. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user112
16y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
There isn’t a strict official standard, but common usage is fairly consistent:
- Around 35mm (full-frame / 35mm equivalent) is generally considered wide-angle.
- 24mm and shorter is commonly considered ultra-wide.
So on an APS-C camera with a 1.5× crop factor, the equivalent cutoff is about 16mm (because 16mm on APS-C gives a similar field of view to 24mm on full frame).
In practice, people often think of a lens as ultra-wide when the field of view becomes so broad that perspective effects are very strong—especially near the frame edges, where subjects can start to look stretched or distorted if placed close to the lens.
So the short answer is: ultra-wide usually means 24mm equivalent or wider.
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