In photography and cinematography, a wide-angle lens is a lens whose focal length is shorter than the focal length of a normal lens. For a 35 mm camera with a 24 by 36 mm format, the normal lens is 50 mm. A lens of focal length 35 mm or less is considered wide-angle.

In addition to giving a wider angle of view, the resulting image can also have perspective distortion.

Common wide-angle lenses for a 35 mm camera are 35, 28, 24, 20, 17 and 14 mm. These lenses will give a rectilinear projection.

Extreme wide-angle lenses normally do not give a geometric projection, and are called fisheye lenses. Common focal-lenghts for a 35 mm camera are 6-8mm (will give a circular image), and 15 or 16mm (will give a curvilinear, full-frame, image).

See angle of view for an example of an image taken by a wide-angle lens.

See also: film format, normal lens