Why You Should Vlog With a Wide

A wide-angle camera lens will serve you better when vlogging handheld or selfie-style.

Whether using your iPhone’s 0.5x lens or a wide-angle lens on a camera, wide-angle lenses are typically ideal for vlogging when pointing the camera at yourself. Let's explore why this is.

Technically, any lens that has the full-frame focal length equivalent of 35mm or lower is considered wide-angle—that pertains to the definition of wide-angle lenses for photography and their utility thereof. However, 35mm is nearly useless when it comes to handheld, selfie-style vlogging, as it is nigh impossible to fit anything other than your face in the frame.

For vlogging, consider anything around the full-frame equivalent of 24mm sufficiently wide. On an APS-C camera, that is 16mm for most brands such as Sony, and 15mm for Canon's APS-C lineup. For handheld vlogging, you'll ideally have an even wider focal length.

If your camera’s lens is insufficiently wide, you need to be disciplined to keep yourself in the frame. Wide-angle lenses simply allow you to fit more in the frame, so you can focus less on framing and more on recording compelling content.

If needed, you can crop the excess in editing if it’s too wide. Remember that you can always trim your footage, but you can't capture more than what you have.

Furthermore, when it comes to cropping, many cameras have additional crop factors when shooting certain video formats such as 4K30, as well as when using active stabilization. A wider-angle lens gives you the slack to fit everything in the frame, even with a crop.

For comparison, below is a Sony a6600 using a 16mm lens, uncropped and handheld.

Next, we have that same lens but with an approximate 1.5x crop factor due to shooting 4K30.

By using a 12mm lens adapter instead, we have a much wider shot, first seeing the difference uncropped.

Last, we have the 12mm lens with the 4K30 crop.

Handheld, all of these options are usable, but the wider 12mm focal length allows for more flexibility in framing.

Wider-angle lenses allow you to hold your camera closer to you while maintaining good framing. That means your mic is closer too, which allows for your voice to be more audible over background noise.

This is a basic rule of mic technique: generally, you want the mic closer to your mouth for better audio quality. Even with more vlogging-oriented microphones like shotgun mics, holding it closer will provide more decibels of room between the volume of your voice and the volume of background noise.

If your lens isn’t quite wide enough to frame you, you often need to fully extend your arm to hold the camera. This can be exhausting even with a phone, especially if using an extender grip like a GorillaPod.

A wider-angle lens allows you to hold your camera closer or forgo an extender grip, or both, which is easier on your stamina for long vlogging sessions. If you're eschewing additional gear like a small tripod, that also means you're carrying less in general—this is especially helpful for vloggers who carry their gear with them all day.

Wide-angle lenses are supremely useful for vloggers, but they aren’t perfect.

Other than with affordable and often overlooked kit lenses that happen to be wide enough for vlogging, wide-angle lenses can be expensive. This is the case with any good lens. An 11-20mm ultra-wide zoom lens for Sony APS-C cameras by Tamron is nearly $800, and APS-C lenses are typically more affordable.

Other than Sony's 16-50mm kit lens for APS-C cameras, almost all options at a focal length of 16mm (equivalent to a full-frame 24mm) or wider are at least $400. For full-frame cameras, you can probably double that price.

High-quality lenses are almost always pricey, and many vloggers would rather start with more affordable gear. However, if you're a smartphone vlogger, you probably already have a 0.5x lens. Furthermore, some wide-angle lens adapters are inexpensive and surprisingly good.

Wide-angle lenses can cause visual distortion, especially if using fisheye lenses. The example below is a photo of something that is flat in real life but appears distorted thanks to a fisheye lens.

However, you can easily prevent noticeable distortion by using non-fisheye wide-angle lenses and keeping your camera at a reasonable distance.

While wide-angle lenses are ideal for handheld vlogging, they aren't as ideal when you need to zoom in more for portraits and non-selfie vlogging.

Your wide-angle lens may be what you use for vlogging, but for photography and long-distance video, you may want a portrait or telephoto lens instead. Wide-angle lenses also have less bokeh and depth of field than portrait and telephoto lenses, though focal length is not the only factor for bokeh.

If you can hold your camera more casually, maintain higher-quality audio, and forgo a tripod or extender grip, you end up with a simpler vlogging setup. The best camera is the one you use, so a wide-angle lens might be the thing that helps you actually get out there and capture your content.

Andy is a creator, marketer, and writer. His most recent employment was with AVerMedia as community manager for creator operations, handling all things social media, influencer relations, and more—if you have any questions related to webcams, capture cards, or similar devices, he's the one to ask! Technologically, he is passionate about making the most of his gear, including his full-fledged Apple ecosystem (with a Windows gaming PC), and finding new, unexpected ways of using his devices, such as streaming tools for productivity. Some of his additional interests include making content on his YouTube channel, improving his photography skills, learning languages, running, and making music, specifically the Ocarina, with his ensemble Ocabanda.