Selecting a Lens

If you ask a cinematographer or photographer what lens they’re using, chances are they'll answer with a number—something like 50mm, 25mm, or 100mm. That number refers to the lens’s focal length. It has such a big impact on how an image looks that people often describe the entire lens just with that one number.

Now, some of you might be thinking focal length is pretty straightforward. Wide lenses show more of a scene, and long lenses zoom in closer. If you want to capture something far away, pick a long lens. If you want a shot that takes in more of the space, go with a wide one. Simple, right?

Lenses are simple, but why do they have this reputation for being complex, like something only a few experts really get? It's a bit like gravity. On one hand, we all live with it. But when we see these complicated equations describing it, it starts to feel way over our heads.

But here’s the thing, professional filmmakers don’t really choose focal lengths just for that reason. There’s actually a lot more going on, and the real reasons they make those choices are way more interesting.

Sidney Lumet, the director behind films like 12 Angry Men and Dog Day Afternoon, once said, “Changing lenses for the amount of information the lens gathers—its ‘field’—is only a partial use of a lens. Lenses have different feelings about them. Different lenses will tell a story differently.”

So today, we’re going to unpack what he meant by that. I’m Tal Lazar, and this is Visium—where we explore images, and figure out what makes them work. In this first series, we focus on images in movies.

So, what’s the big deal with focal length? And what exactly is it? Well, if you’ve ever used a magnifying glass to start a fire, then you’ve already worked with a focal point. That’s the spot where light from something far away (like the sun) comes together. When all those rays meet in one place, it gets hot enough to burn. That hot spot? That’s the focal point.

Every lens has one. And the distance from that point to the center of the lens is, you guessed it, the focal length.

Now, when I say "lens," I mean one piece of glass. But in cameras, what we call a lens is actually made up of several pieces of glass. Each one is technically its own lens, with its own focal length. We think of the whole setup as one lens, but inside, it's a group of lenses working together.

Camera lenses have several glass elements inside them for a reason—they’re there to fix problems. These problems, called aberrations, can mess with the image in different ways, like blurring edges or distorting shapes. Beyond that, the internal glass also helps solve some practical challenges.

Take a 1000mm lens, for example. Since focal length is the distance from the center of the lens to its focal point, a 1000mm lens should be a full meter long—just over three feet. That’s a massive lens, and not exactly easy to work with on a film set.
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But 1000mm lenses do exist, and they’re often much shorter than a meter. How’s that possible? That’s where those extra pieces of glass inside the lens come in. Certain optical designs allow lens makers to bend and shape light in ways that let the lens be physically shorter than its focal length. That’s what a telephoto lens is. A lot of people think “telephoto” just means a long lens, but technically, it means a lens that’s shorter in size than its focal length would suggest. Not all long lenses are telephoto, but all telephoto lenses are built around this clever trick.

So now we know what focal length is—but why does it matter so much? Focal length affects how much the lens bends light. Wide lenses, also called short lenses, bend light more. That’s how they manage to fit more of the scene into the frame, though that can also cause a bit of distortion. On the other hand, long lenses bend light less, which gives them a much narrower field of view.
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This bending of light has a direct effect on magnification. Long lenses make things look bigger, while wide lenses do the opposite. But what about the more interesting stuff Sidney Lumet mentioned—the idea that different lenses actually feel different and tell stories in different ways?

When I teach filmmakers about lenses, I like to throw in a little curveball. I show two pictures side by side and ask a strange question. One image is from The Hurt Locker, where the main character is walking away, shot with a long lens. The other is a close-up from The Tree of Life, taken with a wide-angle lens. Then I ask: what’s the distance—from the camera to the actor? In inches or feet.

At first, no one wants to answer. It feels like a trick question. But once people start guessing, something clicks. In The Hurt Locker, viewers feel like they’re far from the actor. And in The Tree of Life, it feels like the camera is right up in the actor’s face, just inches away.
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Think about it—you can make your audience feel either far away or incredibly close to your subject. Can that be used to tell a story? Absolutely.
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In The Hurt Locker, the long lens creates distance. We’re watching the hero from afar, almost like an observer. In The Tree of Life, the wide-angle close-up puts us right there—so close we can see every pore, every wrinkle. There’s no room to hide from the emotion.

What’s funny is that the Hurt locker shot is a wide shot, even though it is shot using a long lens, and The Tree of Life shot is a close-up, even though it is a wide lens. It’s a great example of why only thinking about field of view misses what lenses can really do—just like Sidney Lumet pointed out.

Now, this might get some of you really excited to experiment. And then reality sets in. Shooting a wide shot with a long lens sounds cool—until you realize you need a huge space to pull it off. Most of the time, physical limits like location size or what gear you have shape what’s possible.

But here’s the twist, and it’s something that clicks for many filmmakers at some point in their career. Early on, when you’re just starting out—maybe filming short projects with friends—you use what’s available. Usually that means shooting in your living room and working with whatever lenses you can get your hands on. You just make it work.
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But as you grow as a filmmaker, things start to shift. Instead of walking into a room and asking, “Okay, what can we do here?” you start thinking differently. You break down the story first—like we talked about back in episode 3. Then, you figure out your narrative perspective, like we explored in episode 5. And now, you choose your focal length—the kind of lens you want to use—before you even have a location picked out.
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From there, you find a location that fits your chosen visual language. Think about it—when was the last time you saw a completely ordinary apartment in a movie? There’s usually something unique about it. Maybe there’s an open layout between the kitchen and living room, a long hallway that adds tension, or it’s a top-floor apartment with a great view. These locations are chosen to match the story. They don’t control the story—the story shapes the choices around it.

And that same idea applies to lenses. Once you know what you want to say with a lens, you head to a rental house and test different lenses until you find the ones that work best. You’re no longer stuck with the few lenses in your kit. Your lens choice, like everything else, follows the story.

But what about those tight spaces we sometimes film in—bathrooms, closets, cars, elevators? Movies take us into all kinds of small places. Here’s where it gets interesting. Now you're starting to see why, sometimes, a crew tows a car so the camera can film from the outside, and other times, the camera is placed inside a moving car instead. Or why some elevators are built on soundstages and others are shot in real buildings.

Even in cramped locations, filmmakers choose when to let physical limitations shape their creative decisions. The key thing to keep in mind is this: lenses have an effect no matter how or why you use them. Whether you picked a lens carefully or used it because you had no other option, that lens still tells the audience something.

If you find yourself stuck shooting in a real elevator and all you can use is a wide-angle lens—don’t pretend the lens isn’t doing anything. It is. That wide-angle will make us feel something, like closeness or tension through distortion. So use it. Let those characteristics support your story, even if the lens choice wasn’t purely your own.

To show how this works in practice, I went looking for a good example of a small location in a film. Bathrooms and elevators are fine, but they’re not always the most exciting. So instead, I picked submarines.

Take Das Boot, a film about a German submarine crew during World War II. The space is tight, and the long, continuous takes make you feel that claustrophobia. The camera moves around the actors in close quarters to show how they have to maneuver around each other too. The filmmakers even asked Arri—the camera company—to modify one of their cameras, making it smaller just to fit inside the sub. That request actually led to the development of a whole new type of camera.

Now compare that to Crimson Tide, a Hollywood submarine movie with a very different feel. This submarine seems endless. The camera moves freely, jumping from wide shots to close-ups with quick cuts. Unlike Das Boot, where you quickly understand the layout of the sub, Crimson Tide keeps you disoriented. The place feels massive.

And that wasn’t just a style choice—it ties directly to the story. In Crimson Tide, the stakes are high. You're watching two commanding officers clash over decisions that could lead to nuclear war. The implied size of the submarine reflects those stakes, since it represents the power these characters are fighting over. The submarine feels massive because it is a powerful machine, and the story is about who gets to control it.

By now, we’re a long way from just thinking about wide shots and close-ups. But we’re still only talking about focal length. And we’re not done. One of the biggest differences between long lenses and wide lenses is how they capture movement.

A classic example that gets mentioned in film schools all the time is from The Graduate. There’s a scene where Dustin Hoffman is running toward the camera, clearly putting in the effort—but it looks like he’s barely moving. That’s because the scene was shot with a very long lens. Long lenses flatten the image, which means that the objects don’t become as big, or small, if they get closer or father away from the camera. In contrast, wide lenses exaggerate perspective. When something is close to a wide lens, it looks much bigger than when it’s far away.

So in that shot from The Graduate, even though Hoffman is running fast towards the camera, he's not getting much bigger in the frame. To us, it seems like he’s barely moving.

You can try it yourself. Shoot a close-up of a person using a long lens, and then shoot the same close-up with a wide lens. To keep the framing consistent, you’ll have to move the camera closer or farther back so that the size of the close-up stays the same. But once you've matched the framing, you’ll quickly notice the difference. In the long lens version, you feel physically distant from the actor. In the wide lens version, you feel much closer.

Now ask the actor to lean forward the same way in both versions. In the long lens shot, it won’t look like they moved much at all. But in the wide lens shot, it’ll feel like they suddenly came way closer—almost invading the viewer’s space.

And that’s something you can absolutely use to tell stories. Whether you want the audience to feel physical closeness and emphasize movement, or avoid it, focal length helps you control those emotional cues.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, here are two great scenes to check out.

First, watch the opening of The King’s Speech. In that scene, Prince Albert is about to speak at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium—and he’s clearly terrified. Look closely, and you’ll notice a wide-angle lens at work. It slightly distorts his face, pulls us closer to his experience, and increases the sense of movement—even though the camera isn’t moving much. The lens does the heavy lifting, making us feel the anxiety and pressure he’s under.

Next, take a look at the opening of Searching for Bobby Fischer. We see young Josh hiding in the bushes, watching people play chess in the park. But he’s not just observing—he’s completely fixated. The filmmakers use long lenses to magnify the small details he’s focused on, details far beyond what we’d normally notice from a distance. There’s no wide shot to show where he is, or how far away—just a sense of intense interest and focused attention.

So with just one element—focal length—you already have powerful storytelling tools at your disposal. And we’re only scratching the surface.

In the next episode, we’ll dive into even more lens traits, like focus, distortion, flares, and more. If you're enjoying this journey, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and join me next time as we keep exploring how filmmakers bring images—and stories—to life.

If you have any thought, an example that wasn’t mentioned or a question, feel free to reach out—just email [email protected] . You can also check out my book at TheLanguageofCinematography.com.

Thanks for spending time with me today. Goodbye!