Blame it on the camera manufacturers.

In 2006, the Canon Rebel XT was one of the most popular cameras in America. A ton of photographers were starting SLR photography for the first time, and what was their first lens? The EF-S 18-55mm kit lens that came packaged by the thousands with the Rebel XT.

Now, don’t get me wrong: this wasn’t a bad thing in and of itself. But the 18-55mm is a pretty wide lens. Even on the Rebel XT’s cropped sensor, 18mm is still the full-frame equivalent of a 29mm lens - a moderately wide focal length. And it’s not just the Rebel XT - Nikon, Sony and Olympus offer wide focal lengths in both their consumer-level digital cameras and in their digital SLRs.

If used correctly, a wide-angle lens is a great instrument for capturing the action. Just look at photojournalists, whose lenses of choice have been getting wider and wider over the past few decades. What do they know that many of these budding SLR photographers don’t? Find out after the jump.

Photo: The lead image from today’s Record Searchlight (Redding, CA) was shot using a wide-angle lens. Notice the tight cropping and the lack of dead space.

Here’s a quick exercise. Newseum hosts images of the front pages of all the major daily newspapers from across the US and around the world. Take a look at a couple and look at how the photographs were shot and cropped. The vast majority of the front page images are shot using a wide-angle lens, and they usually have one thing in common: very little dead space.

The difference between how a working professional photojournalist and many amateurs use a wide-angle lens is the distance. Photojournalists see a wide-angle lens as a way to get even closer to the action, while many amateurs and hobbyists stay backed away. There’s tons of photos on photo-sharing sites online that would have been better if the photographer had just gotten closer. To show the emotion and feel of event, a tighter crop will usually (but not always) have more impact.

Here’s an example to show you what I mean. This photo by Megandavid has the potential of being a really cool shot, but the framing causes it to fall a bit short:

According to the meta data, the photo was shot at 18mm - the widest end of the kit lens’s range. The result was a lot of dead space:

That one, small piece of the image is where all the action was going on. Shooting that small bit at 18mm would have resulted in a lot more dramatic of a photo. Wide-angle lenses are preferred because of their ability to make something look dramatic - almost larger than life. They also typically are capable of greater depth of field than a telephoto lens, creating a scene that is sharper as a whole.

Can the image be saved? Nothing in post-processing can fully replace strong composition in the first place, but a little cropping can go a long way. Simply by eliminating dead space, this image becomes a lot stronger.

Is it a fantastic image? No, but it is a lot better. For the first time, the woman’s expression is visible and there’s some cool water-droplet action going on. This is a photo that will stick out a lot more in a vacation album than the original version.

If you think this is too tight of a shot, Pedro Pinheiro put together an alternate crop that keeps the child’s shadow in the frame. I agree with him that in this image, the shadow is an interesting aspect that adds a little something to the composition.

Either way, a tighter crop does a lot to better this image. Remember that a wide-angle lens is no excuse to lose your subjects in the scene. Eliminate dead space and get in there and shoot.

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