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In general, wide angle lenses tend to have greater depth of field and closer minimum focusing distances.  More unique characteristics of telephoto lenses are discussed in Topic 4, and also touched on in Topic 5.

To offer a simple demonstration of wide angle lenses, I set up the following.  I positioned a tripod at one end of a small field, and kept it in the exact same position for all shots.  Starting with my longest lens and a teleconverter, I picked a very small pine tree as the center of all my shots.  This tree won't even be visible in the wide angle pictures.  Changing lenses as necessary, I took a series of pictures with ever-increasing picture angles (shorter focal lengths), from the same position and centered on the same small tree.

As a matter of reference, the human eye (minus our peripheral vision) sees with a focal length of about 50mm.  So, if our eyes were camera lenses, they would be 50mm lenses.   This is why a 50mm lens is considered to be a normal lens.  Lenses with a focal length shorter than 50mm are considered wide-angle, and lenses with a focal length greater than 50mm are considered telephoto.  These lenses can run the spectrum from ultra-wide-angle to super-telephoto.

Telephoto lenses can be used to draw attention to a specific subject, where wide angle lenses can be used to show the vastness of a scene.  (Photographing a herd of caribou crossing the tundra, or isolating out a single animal.)

Photograph of the setup	Graphical diagram of the demonstration	Slide show composed of the individual photographs
This is a photograph of the actual setup. Click on the image below to enlarge the picture.	This is a basic diagram to demonstrate what's going on. Click on the image below to enlarge the picture. It will open in a pdf document.	This slide show was graciously compiled by Kathleen Murtagh, from the individual pictures below. It provides a better way to see what is happening as the lens focal length changes.
		The file size is 2.28 Mb If you have a slower internet connection, it is recommended that you view the individual pictures below. Click here to view the slide show Use your browser's "back" button to return to this page.

The table below shows the series of pictures that I took.  Click any image to enlarge.
You will then be able to advance through the sequence.

Picture Angle Taken from Nikon's Spec Sheets	Focal Length	Full Frame (uncropped) image
	550mm
	500mm
	450mm
6° 10'	400mm
	350mm
	300mm
	250mm
12° 20'	200mm
	135mm
	105mm
	80mm
22° 50'	70mm
	50mm
	35mm
61°	24mm
	20mm
76°	18mm
	15mm
99°	12mm