Then move your face in close to the monitor so that you are viewing it from a few inches away. A wide angle lens does not distort perspective but, if the viewer of the ultimate image does not adjust his viewing position, it appears to do so. As a practical matter, most people these days aren't impressed by a wide-angle effect until you get down to 24mm. In other words, when viewed at a standard distance, a print taken with a normal lens will appear to have no unusual perspective. For a camera taking 35mm film, a 50mm lens is considered normal.
Normal lenses are easy and cheap to fabricate.
Furthermore, normal lenses allow photography in rather low light with no flash or tripod. This gathers 16 times as much light as a yuppie mid-range zoom. Another common option is the 50mm macro lens. Telephoto lenses are high-magnification devices. These are for when you are photographing something from far away either because you want to flatten perspective or because you are unable to approach your subject.