Rent Wide Angel Lenses for Landscapes, Real Estate, and Night Sky Photography/Videography

Rent classic wide zooms like the 14-24mm or sharp primes in lengths anywhere between 10mm and 35mm, plus our full range of portable lighting, production equipment, medium format cameras, and so much more – all with no or low deposit. Reserve your lenses, have them shipped directly to you, and use the prepaid return label after you're done.

How to Choose a Wide Angle Lens: A Primer on Distortion

Wide angle lenses are not all created equally. Here are a few key things to consider when picking out your lens:

Almost all wide angle lenses create some distortion, though different lenses result in different distortions. The most obvious in wide angles is perspective distortion, where, for example, if two objects are the same size, the one that is farther away will appear smaller. This is why a straight road appears to converge to a point or a dog's nose will appear comically huge when close to the wide angle lens. All wide lenses will exhibit this to a greater or lesser degree.

With barrel distortion, the edges of the image look bent, causing straight lines to appear curved and it’s more pronounced the wider a lens is. Sometimes this effect is desired and other times it's not so pay attention if a lens touts having low barrel distortion or low distortion "at the edges". 

A rectilinear lens is made to reduce barrel distortion and the best lenses can virtually eliminate it. If a little bit remains, image editing software can often correct it. The majority of our lenses are rectilinear but their ability to control distortion still varies. For a wide angle that captures true-to-life lines, a tilt-shift lens might be required.

The counterpart to this is the curvilinear lens (most often seen as "fisheyes"). These generally are found at the shortest focal lengths (less than 15mm) and create an almost circular image with a field of view that can reach 180 degrees.

Top Wide Angle Lenses

One of the main perks of the wide angle lens is the ability to squeeze more into your frame. They’re a natural fit for landscape and night sky photographers and documentarians. But they are also incredibly popular among those who specialize in real estate, urbex, and concerts/festivals/clubs. Here are a few of our most popular models:

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III
This is a versatile and extremely popular wide angle zoom that's the ideal companion for landscape work, vacations, events, and street photography. It offers edge-to-edge sharpness, excellent light transmission, and minimal distortion.

Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G
This is a fast, sharp ultra-wide zoom lens with a rugged construction and professional-grade dust and moisture resistance suitable for landscape photography in almost all conditions. It features low coma and aberrations, making it a good choice for night sky and star photography. 

Sony FE 14mm f/1.8 GM
This is a high-quality ultrawide lens that is part of Sony's esteemed G Master series. It offers outstanding optics designed specifically for night sky landscape shooting, with high-curvature XA elements that minimize sagittal flare for more accurate rendering of stars.

Panasonic Lumix 7-14mm f/4
This micro four thirds mount lens, when mounted on a Lumix G camera, offers advanced contrast AF performance in addition to normal AF, which is smooth and precise, making this a popular choice for everyday video shooting.

Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM
For users of Canon's new RF-mount mirrorless system, this sharp prime lens is an ideal choice for street and lifestyle photography. Its smooth AF performance makes it perfect for shooting video and would be a great photo/video hybrid lens for weddings and other major events.

Fuji XF 8-16mm f/2.8 R LM
This lens is equipped with a field curvature correction mechanism that adjusts according to the position of the zoom in order to achieve edge-to-edge sharpness while aspherical lens elements control distortion and spherical aberration. This means having an ultrawide angle of view without giving up accurate rendering.

BL rents these wide angle lenses and so many more from popular brands like Canon and Sony. We also have an expanding inventory from multi-mount/alternative brands like Sigma and Sirui.