When to use wide angle lens?

[TinyTouchPhotography]

Last year I purchased a lens kit that had a wide angle lens w/ macro. I never used it, but now am wondering what I could use it for? How will this affect people photography? The lens I have is a Merkury Optics 52mm 0.45x Wide Angle w/macro. It's possible that the answer will be to not use this for people photography...but I just gotta know!

I did play around with it a little and take a picture of something with the lens, took it off and took the same picture with the same settings...the picture with the wide angle was brighter and not as sharp (possibly because of the brightness).

 

[TinyTouchPhotography]

for clarification, this is a lens that attaches to my regular lens, it's not an entire lens itself. Upon researching, I'm finding that it's mostly just used for landscapes...but any advice on it is helpful.

 

[bahandi]

It could be made for landscape shots, but a lot of wide angle lenses will give slight distortion to the subject. Some people use this distortion to add some "flavour" to their shots.

 

[Derrel]

What you have is often called an auxillary wide-angle lens attachment, and it decreases effective focal length. Multiple the focal length in use by .45, and the new effective focal length will be the result. One member here, Dylan White, has used one of these for some offbeat fashion shots. Often, this type of auxillary lens brings with it some optical imperfections, like a greater tendency for the lens to flare when shot toward the sun, or for a greater tendency toward chromatic aberration or "color fringing". At times, the look can be kind of offbeat and fun.

 

[JimmyO]

Take the lenses and throw it, prefereably at a brick wall so it breaks. Screw on lenses are the biggest ****ing joke inphotography. It can only and will only make your shots worse

 

[TinyTouchPhotography]

Thanks for the input. I think I will just keep it off!

 

[Tulsa]

Take the lenses and throw it, prefereably at a brick wall so it breaks. Screw on lenses are the biggest ****ing joke inphotography. It can only and will only make your shots worse

:roll:

I had one of these when I first started, it was a fisheye. I took some pretty good photos with it, but I will say 90% of the time the images came out crappy with lots of flaring.
I think for myself it gave me the opportunity to experiment with different angles of shots, use it every once and awhile, have fun with it, but don't rely on it.