Universal Studios with Ultrawide lens
For travel, I typically recommend carrying two lenses, an ultrawide zoom and a normal prime being my lenses of choice. On a recent trip to Universal Resort Orlando, I broke my own rules and brought more lenses but I primarily used two. I previously posted a tour the Universal theme park with nothing but the Sony 24mm F/1.4 (review here) mounted on the Sony A7riii. [Recommended Adorama Sony A7riii travel bundle]
Because I was reviewing the Sony 24mm F/1.4, I used it extensively at first, but gradually shifted over to my wide angle lens, the Sony 12-24mm F/4. (review here. Amazon here. Adorama here). My shooting reinforced by earlier statements on the necessity of ultra wide shooting when traveling. While it takes practice to shoot properly with an ultra wide lens, when used correctly it can bring an intimacy, immediacy and unique perspective to your travel images. Some shooters will recommend a telephoto lens when traveling, and using a telephoto lens to bring in details. I see it in the exact opposite way: Shooting with an ultra wide lens forces you to get close to your subject, forcing you to appreciate the details.
This post will include a bit of a mix. Sample images of the Sony 12-24mm F/4 G, a bit of a tour of photographing Universal theme park, and some thoughts on how to make the most of an ultrawide lens. So in part, it’s a further review of the Sony 12-24mm F/4. In part, this is “how to use an ultra wide lens.” Finally, in part, it’s how to photograph Universal Orlando. You should be able to click any image for larger if you want to pixel peep.
My Ultra wide Past at Universal Theme Park
This was not the first trip where I shot with an ultrawide lens at Universal studios. It was actually my third trip but my first trip with the Sony A7riii. During my first trip a few years ago, I brought the Sony 10-18mm F/4 (Amazon / Adorama). By far, the Sony 10-18mm F/4 is my favorite aps-c lens for Sony, for its image quality as well as usefulness.
With a focal length equivalent of 15-27mm, the Sony 10-18mm allowed me to bring a great deal into the frame, whether it be an entire building, or the entire skyward view of Diagon Alley.
On my next trip to Universal, I decided to bring full frame but I was shooting the Nikon D750 at the time. For Nikon and Canon shooters who truly love ultra ultra wide shooting, I can recommend the Irix 11mm F/4 lens (Amazon / Adorama). You really won’t find a wider full frame lens, and it’s fairly light weight and affordable as well. It’s a manual focus lens and while I prefer the convenience of modern autofocus, manual focus is actually exceptionally easy on ultra wide lenses. (Set the lens to F8, 3 foot focal distance and that covers you for almost any shot).
Each of these photos can start to show you the benefits and dangers of ultrawide shooting, which I’ll discuss more below. When I travel someplace scenic, I want to take it all in. I’m not just looking at a single subject, I’m trying to take in the entire environment. An ultra wide lens allows my photographs to do the same thing. The viewer of the ultra wide photograph can, to some degree, experience the same level of awe at the surroundings that I was able to experience when I was there.
The downside is that when not used carefully, an ultra wide lens can make your subject too distant, filling the image with far too little subject and way too much wasted empty space. I hope my images strike the right balance, but I can’t claim that I’m always successful.
So first I shot with an aps-c kit. Then a 24mp full frame camera. Upping the game further, the most recent trip was with the 42mp Sony A7riii and Sony 12-24mm F/4 G, giving me the opportunity to truly shoot extremely wide with extremely high resolution and great image quality.
Daigon Alley with the Sony 12-24mm F/4
Universal Orlando is the home of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the most engrossing theme park experience I’ve ever seen. You are transported directly into the novels and movies. This is not a single attraction, it’s a universe. Shooting ultra wide allows the viewer to appreciate the scope of detail in the surroundings.
A few notes on the above photograph: Shooting ultra wide typically lets you use fairly slow shutter speeds and the Sony in-body stabilization system further allows you to slow down shutter speeds. Thus, I was able to keep the ISO reasonable in the above image (at ISO 3200), by shooting at 1/8th of a second.
Unsurprisingly, theme parks are flooded with people and huge crowds of people in t-shirts doesn’t exactly make Daigon Alley look “realistic.” So in the above image, I decided to capture the alley generally above the heads of the theme park guests.
Utilizing a 16X9 crop allowed me to also escape the heads of the crowds while also creating a panorama type look.
Finally, notice the neon ice cream cone in the foreground: When shooting ultra wide, it is critical to consider a foreground subject. Without a foreground subject, you just have this image of a tiny subject in the distant background. It’s critical to consider anchoring many ultra wide images with a foreground subject.
The image above was done handheld but wide angle images often work well with tripods at night. To keep my kit compact, I carried the Joby Gorillapod 3k. (Amazon / Adorama). This affordable and ultra-portable tripod allows me to capture a long exposure any place, at any moment. The downside is that the tripod is only about a foot tall, meaning if you can’t find something to place the tripod on, you’re shooting from a very low to the ground perspective. (But we will see this is actually an advantage when shooting ultra wide).
A long exposure has the added benefit of erasing some of the people — anybody that just walked through the scene. Of course, there were people standing in place staring upward, and they remained in the final image.
While this can be said of all images, it’s especially true of ultra wide images: You need to consider the entire frame, the back ground, the foreground, the subject or multiple subjects. This isn’t just an image of a dragon bellowing fire. It’s also an image of Gringott’s bank on the left, the neon ice cream cone on the right, the colorful ad on the interesting building in the back.
Hogwart’s Castle / Hogsmeade with the Sony 12-24mm F/4
Much like the “real” universe of Harry Potter, Gringott’s bank is located in an alley hidden in London, while Hogwart’s School of Wizardry is located in a far off town, Hosgmeade. First and foremost, people associate ultra wide lenses with landscape photography. There is a bridge that provides breath taking landscape images of Hogwart’s Castle.
A few things I was to mention about this image and shooting ultra wide. Many shooters may have preferred a longer lens and isolating the castle in the photograph. If there was uninteresting space in front of the castle, then this image would be a failure. But at least to my eye, the foreground isn’t boring: The greenery and stream lead into Hogwart’s castle. The rocks along the stream form leading lines, leading the viewer’s eyes to the castle.
Also note above the combination of ultra wide shootings and clouds. The perspective from an ultra wide lenses will force clouds into dramatic angles and presentations. We will see this is more images below but before we do skies, let’s look at more night time long exposures:
People were constantly walking by when this image was taken, but the long exposure erased them all. This image is wide but not truly ultra wide, at 20mm and then further cropped. The Sony 12-24mm F/4 does give you the flexibility between ultra wide and more normal wide. We are doing a few things to keep this image interesting: We are being conscious of the foreground and background, using the gates and posts to frame the castle in the background. Despite being wide, we don’t waste any negative space in the image. Below, we see a similar capture at much wider angle:
With our Joby Gorillapod on the ground, we get very very close to the gates and shoot upward. When you shoot at an angle with an ultra wide lens, you create distorted perspective. Notice how the side columns lean towards each other. Used intentionally, it can enhance an image but you need to be aware of it. If you want a “normal” perspective, it’s important to keep the camera perfectly level, as I did in the next image.
A great thing about ultra wide shooting, and a critical ingredient, is the ability to compose sharp images of foreground and background subjects. The wide focal length and F8 aperture create an infinite depth of field. Instead of a snowman and a blurred castle in the distant background, we get an image that allows both subjects in crisp detail. Sometimes this is referred to “near/far” shooting with an ultra wide lens. When the opportunity presents itself, “near/far” is an excellent method to compose interesting wide angle photographs.
One thing I can’t emphasize enough when shooting ultra wide, is consideration of the entire frame:
The long exposure again erased most of the people, probably dozens if not hundreds of people passed by in the 15 seconds that the shutter was open: Only the conductor remains, who was mostly standing still. The 16X9 crop gives the wide image more of a panorama look. The ultrawide angle lets us put in a large number of elements: the train, the gateway, the train station in the distance.
One final educational image before we leave Hogsmeade. I previously said that shooting on the ground with the Joby Gorillapod can actually be a significant positive when shooting ultrawide:
Consider getting low, very low, when shooting with an ultrawide lens. The ground can become an important part of the foreground, creating a unique and interesting perspective. Again, we were able to anchor the image with several different elements and again the long exposure had the added benefit of erasing the pass by traffic. But a word of warning: You must have no shame. You can’t be too embarrassed to be the weird person with your camera on the ground while hundreds of people are walking around you.
Getting CLOSE with ultra wide shooting
Shooting with an ultra wide angle can be used to create an intimacy that you don’t get with a telephoto lens. If the Jurassic Park dinosaur was shot with a longer lens from a distance, you’d have a pretty standard compressed image. Shooting ultra wide meant shooting extremely close — not more than a foot or two from the T-rex with the Sony 12-24mm at 17mm. By getting that close, it gave me more appreciation for the details and it made the final image look far more threatening.
Below, we see a Statute that stands at the Lost Continent land in Islands of Adventure at Universal. Meant to signify and ancient mythical land, the use of an ultra wide lens adds more flair and fantasy.
When you shoot close with a wide angle lens, you get proportional distortion of the image. It’s why you do not want to shoot portraits in such a manner . But in the above image, the distortion from using the Sony 12-24mm only adds to the drama of the shot.
For those my age and older, you may remember when JAWS was the signature attraction at a Universal Studios tour. The attraction is gone and they hung the big fish out to dry..
In taking this photograph, I wasn’t more than a couple of feet from the beast. Moving from close….
The Drama of Skies with Ultrawide
In the next image, we use the shark as the foreground subject in a Universal landscape.
Many wide angle shots are likely to have lots of sky. Ideally, you’ll get partially cloudy skies as opposed to plain blue or overcast white/gray. It’s important not to overexpose the skies, so they can become an interesting part of the background of the image:
An interesting footnote about the above image from the Transformers. The subject was actually in the shade, which meant the white balance for the sky was very different than the white balance for the subject. Using a gradient filter in Lightroom and then using a luminance mask, I was able to adjust the white balance of the sky separately from the white balance of the rest of the image. (My article on using Lightroom masks to fix skies).
When you have partial cloudiness, ultrawide lenses will stretch out the clouds, creating subtle leading lines and adding drama to the sky in a landscape.
While the last image and next image of the streets at Universal Studios also had some drama added in post-processing, the drama began with the wide angle lens.
The yellow road line is a critical aspect of this image. Curved lines leading into images can help lead the viewer in. This is true of any image, but especially with a wide angle lens. Which leads to our next sections:
Curves and Colors at Universal with Wide Angle
My children are teens with no interest in the Dr. Seuss section of the theme park, but it should be visited by every photographer. Whimsical colors and curves can feel a wide angle lens to great effect. Unfortunately, I somehow missed focus slightly in this image, but it’s really only noticeable when you pixel peep. With an ultra wide lens, your lines will only be straight and perpendicular if your camera is entirely level in both the vertical and horizontal axis. But the truffala trees from the Lorax are never straight. In fact, there are few straight lines anywhere in Dr. Seuss. Shooting at an upward angle accentuates the playful curves.
The rides themselves can become architectural subjects for the ultra wide angle photographer. See the use of the colors and curves of the Hulk roller coaster below..
Bringing it together with ultra wide shooting
We again find ourselves in Universal’s mythological inspired Lost Continent land. In the “ruins” pictured above, we have a massive Poseiden’s trident in the foreground with a destroyed temple in the background. Without a very wide angle lens, this composition would not have been possible. A dramatic cloudy sky completes the image. To me, this is far more interesting than just an image of the trident or just an image of the temple in the back. Below, we see another landscape of this same land, using the waterway to lead us into the frame.
Conclusions
I’m going to break up conclusions into three different sections, as this post was a bit of an amalgamation…
Conclusion: Ultra wide in Travel
Whenever I complete any trip and review my images, the photographs taken with an ultra wide angle lens are invariably my favorite. Most photographers start off with a “normal” view zoom, covering an equivalent focal length of 24-70mm or 28-75mm. A large number of photographers then add a telephoto lens, like a 70-300mm. Maybe I’m simply unconventional, but I could live without either of these lenses for most of my travel photography: Give me something ultra wide. Ultra wide typically means wider than 24mm For aps-c shooters, there are very few lenses that are wider than an equivalent of about 15mm. (a 10-18mm lens is the equivalent of 15-27mm). For full frame shooters, most “ultra wide” lenses are in the range of 16mm, but there are a few lenses that go even wider. Those lenses can be challenging and they aren’t for everyone, but they are fun. Sony shooters are fortunate to have the availability of the Sony 12-24mm F/4 G, one of the widest autofocus zoom lenses in existence, and a fairly reasonable price and size. (See on Amazon/ Adorama).
For those that want to go truly ultra ultra wide, some pointers:
- Get CLOSE to your subject often. Much closer then you expect.
- Anchor your image with multiple points of interest (near/far wide shooting)
- Shoot from low and pay attention to the foreground
- Look for opportunities to use lines that lead in to the image
- Avoid overexposing skies and make them part of dramatic landscapes
- If you want your lines straight and perpendicular, you must keep your camera level
- Play with distorted perspective to add drama to the images
- Consider 16X9 crops for a panorama look
Conclusion: Sony 12-24mm F/4 G
I reviewed the Sony 12-24mm F/4 G a year ago and gave it an extremely favorable review. In my mind, this post validates my positive review. My impression of the lens continues to be glowing. If you find any flaws in any of the photographs posted in this review, the fault lies with the photographer, not the lens. There are no meaningful defects. In my formal testing of the Sony 12-24mm F/4 G, the only real flaw I identified was occasional ugly flaring. In real world shooting, these types of flares are rare and are usually controllable. In several hundreds photographs taken at Universal, with common strong sun, not a single image was ruined by flare.
The Sony 12-24mm F/4 is undeniably sharp, especially as relatively wide aperture. Below, see a full image and then a 100% crop of the near top left corner. You really need to go into the extreme tips of the corners to find any objections to sharpness. And this tiny bit of softness, in the corner of the corner, is really only going to be noticeable with extreme pixel peeping.
The most significant advantage of the Sony 12-24mm F/4 G, particularly for travel, is the size. There are only a small handful of similar autofocus zoom lenses:
- Canon 11-24mm F/4: $2700 and 1180 grams (See on Amazon / Adorama)
- Sigma 12-24mm F/4: $1600 and 1100 grams (See on Amazon / Adorama)
- Sony 12-24mm F/4 $1650 and 565 grams (See on Amazon / Adorama)
Looking at the above comparison, you will understand why I sincerely believe that currently, the Sony system is the best for those that want extreme ultra wide photography. In terms of cost, the Sony 12-24mm F/4 is an absolute bargain, at about the same price as the third party Sigma. In terms of weight, I’d much rather travel with a 565 gram lens than lenses that are over a kilogram.
Conclusion: Photography at Universal Studios
While in line at Universal theme park, I overheard a conversation between two other guests. One person was talking about how someone had recommended they bring a camera to the park but they opted to just take their phone, because the images would be just as good. I first brought my kids to a theme park almost 10 years ago. At that time, the majority of guests were lugging around “real cameras.”
On this recent trip, cameras were rarities. I saw lots of people taking snapshots with their phones, but fewer than 5% of guests seemed to be carrying anything more. I don’t blame them. Phones are convenient and they produce images that are “good enough” for most people.
But if you are a photography enthusiast, theme parks like Universal can allow for great creative artistry. Using an ultra wide lens helps you create unique images that are immersed in the environment and images that really can’t be replicated with a phone.
My gear used in this post:
- Sony 12- 24mm F/4 G: See on Amazon / Adorama
- Sony A7riii body: See on Amazon / See on Adorama
- Joby 3k Gorillapod: See on Amazon / See on Adorama
Adorama also offers the Sony A7riii and some great “Free extras.” They include a very good camera bag, my favorite full size tripod, the Manfrotto Befree, and a Joby Gorillpod. You can see this entire package here.
If you are considering purchasing any of these items, you can help to support this site at no additional cost to yourself by using our links.
Please follow me on twitter and/or accept notifications from this blog to catch our future articles.
