Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: bluekorn on June 26, 2019, 06:49:01 pm
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Photographers of this site and elsewhere are often heard to say "because that's how I see the world". The discussion is about lens choice for the best personal experience. "I like 35mm but I don't like 50mm." "My eye/brain sees 28mm but I don't particularly enjoy shooting at 35mm". And it seems this is mostly about angle of view rather than subject distance or depth of field etc. The issue is compelling to me. For some reason I think photographers that know this about themselves and their visual experience have an advantage, at the very least in enjoying their work and perhaps in making stronger photos. Do any of you "see" the world best at a particular angle of view? If you had to try that experiment of using one camera, one prime for an extended period of time would you know unquestionably which lens you would choose? Thanks for any reflections. Peter
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Probably the best way to think about it is to forget the idea that our eyes have any real connection to how a camera sees the world. For instance if you consider the FOV of human vision you would be using a fisheye lens but if you considered the area of our vision that can identify fine detail then you would use a very long telephoto.
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I am ok with between 35 and 50mm. I tend to prefer 35mm because it is more versatile for me: travel, travel/environmental people, landscape.
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I tend to go out with a single prime and that ranges from 35-100mm. I go with one lens to explore. I like the limitation of the single choice. It forces me to look and see. I do a good amount of street photography and I enjoy using a 35mm a 75mm equivalent in M43. Makes for a more graphic image. A 35mm equivalent is a great walk around lens, when environment is wanted for context.
Peter
Ps As of late I have been using a 25mm f1.2 for street, 50mm equivalent M43. I am enjoying the very selective focus such a lens affords.
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On vacation or just shooting around with a P & S with an equivalent 24-70mm zoom, I tend to shoot most pictures at the wide angle end 24-28mm.
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My recommendation would be to use a 24-70 lens exclusively for a few days and frame each image to your liking.
Then check later in your raw conversion software what focal length you ended up using most.
As far as I am concerned, I see two clear peaks of usage at 24mm and 35-40mm.
A friend of mine did a casual test with me last year, and she was mostly 50-70mm.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Good advice Bernard. I tried much the same thing but over a long period and looked to see where most of my higher rated images were to be found. It was a revelation. Obviously there are outliers and such but I could quickly see where where my favorite images were coming from.
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I would have to say it's all about perception and what you want to say about the scene. If you have enough experience shooting different focal lengths, then it would be much clearer what lens to use. Since there is no one perfect lens for all scenes, why limit yourself. Carrying just one lens is great for experimentation and challenging yourself, but when I want to express my vision I need flexibility.
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Worked for a HCB, and lots of other. We are all different but a significant number of very successful photographers found that limiting equipment had a positive effect on their creative output.
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Worked for a HCB, and lots of other. We are all different but a significant number of very successful photographers found that limiting equipment had a positive effect on their creative output.
One lens forces you to design and make that one lens work. In time you start seeing the world as the lens does, it happens rather quickly. When you have an option, you will doubt the choice and stop and change lenses. Often loosing the moment.
The one lens makes you work a little harder. I have often been rewarded by this method. You see in terms of that one lens.
Peter
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One lens forces you to design and make that one lens work. In time you start seeing the world as the lens does, it happens rather quickly. When you have an option, you will doubt the choice and stop and change lenses. Often loosing the moment.
The one lens makes you work a little harder. I have often been rewarded by this method. You see in terms of that one lens.
Peter
Agree completely.
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One lens forces you to design and make that one lens work. In time you start seeing the world as the lens does, it happens rather quickly. When you have an option, you will doubt the choice and stop and change lenses. Often loosing the moment.
The one lens makes you work a little harder. I have often been rewarded by this method. You see in terms of that one lens.
Peter
I could not agree more!
Beyond that, it varies/varied with format. On 135 flm I would use 135mm for headshots and 35mm for full-length fashion. Quite often, during the 60s, we would use 35mm for half/lengths too, which gave a distortion, an elongation to heads at the edges of the frame, which was graphically novel for a while, but hardly flattering. Seek out some of the many relevant Penelope Tree shots by Bailey to get the idea. I don't think he was doing that with Shrimpton!
Were I doing commercial work today, fashion and calendars would see me using 300mm and my 500mm reflex a lot more than I used to use 'em. But the point about that is all about an interest in "look".
Today, old, not terribly fit and also very much retired, if taking a camera walkies at all, I would not dream of leaving home without a single lens already fitted. Photography is no longer about making my living, but amusement. Why play at mules and Nat. Geog. stars on a three-month trip? Use that single lens choice to its best advantage and be surprised at how quickly you discover photographs are about you, not equipment. You have a better chance of learning that if you keep the lens pretty wide open. Stop down until all is sharp, and waddya got? Confusion.
On 120 fomat (6x6) I used the 80mm for studio full-lengths and the 150mm (180mm when I had one) for portaits and some full-lengths when I wanted less background. I would not go walkies with a big camera, ever again.
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Further to the above: the black/white beach shot was a 4/200mm Nikkor; the squate shot with 500 Series 'blad and a 150mm. I also used a weak Softar on it.
Thr fashion pic was a 2.8/35mm Nikkor.
As I say, you could shoot with any lens, but the choice gives the identity - to an extent.
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Nice angles, Rob.
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Nice angles, Rob.
Best thing about 'em: they had no interest in politics at all! Well, neither they nor I ever raised the subject, so conclusions were there to be drawn.
:-)
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One lens forces you to design and make that one lens work. In time you start seeing the world as the lens does, it happens rather quickly. When you have an option, you will doubt the choice and stop and change lenses. Often loosing the moment.
The one lens makes you work a little harder. I have often been rewarded by this method. You see in terms of that one lens.
Peter
Peter I agree with this up to a point. I have seen this view expressed many times on different sites. I do just that on most of my walks. Too lazy or too slow to change lenses, so start to use and see in terms of the lens I am using. 90 mm macro. However, if we must choose and be constrained, it is only reasonable to make a lens choice based on your interests and the kind of photography you do. Zooms are so good now there is little reason to pick a prime over a zoom if you are limited to one lens; especially if your interests are varied. When I shot slide film, I used 35-105 zoom 90% of the time. If one looks at Slobodan's city-scapes architecture/abstract images, there is no way he can do those without the ability to zoom in and isolate his chosen design. It's not like he can hire a crane and ask to be moved around. I think, no matter the lens, if a person is any good at photography, he will adapt to the viewpoint of the lens.
So the other side of the coin is well expressed by Jim T; and I think both ways will work.
I would have to say it's all about perception and what you want to say about the scene. If you have enough experience shooting different focal lengths, then it would be much clearer what lens to use. Since there is no one perfect lens for all scenes, why limit yourself. Carrying just one lens is great for experimentation and challenging yourself, but when I want to express my vision I need flexibility.
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Peter I agree with this up to a point. I have seen this view expressed many times on different sites. I do just that on most of my walks. Too lazy or too slow to change lenses, so start to use and see in terms of the lens I am using. 90 mm macro. However, if we must choose and be constrained, it is only reasonable to make a lens choice based on your interests and the kind of photography you do. Zooms are so good now there is little reason to pick a prime over a zoom if you are limited to one lens; especially if your interests are varied. When I shot slide film, I used 35-105 zoom 90% of the time. If one looks at Slobodan's city-scapes architecture/abstract images, there is no way he can do those without the ability to zoom in and isolate his chosen design. It's not like he can hire a crane and ask to be moved around. I think, no matter the lens, if a person is any good at photography, he will adapt to the viewpoint of the lens.
So the other side of the coin is well expressed by Jim T; and I think both ways will work.
John,
Absolutely...The single lens option for me is for street photography.
When I'm out in the landscape looking for landscape material for my paintings I use a Sony RX 10 IV. It has a 24-600mm equivalent in 35mm. I need all of that for finding and enhancing what it is I'm designing for paintings. I get the image as perfect as I can in camera and move things around invariably when making the painting... after all, a painting is not a photograph and has different needs.
Peter
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And there you are: zooms, the one thing I no longer own, having only ever had one, and hating it with a vengeance.
They defeat the entire point for the non-assignment situation - for me - because of weight and the inevitable problem of blessed choices which are decidedly not what I want on a walkabout. If I remember the OP correctly, the thing is about finding a focal length that appeals, and using a zoom makes you hop from this to that and make that journey to visual identity so much longer and confusing than it need be.
Remember a time when people bought a Rolleiflex tlr and lived happily ever after?
Enough is enough, and more too much. At least at the beginning.
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John,
Absolutely...The single lens option for me is for street photography.
When I'm out in the landscape looking for landscape material for my paintings I use a Sony RX 10 IV. It has a 24-600mm equivalent in 35mm. I need all of that for finding and enhancing what it is I'm designing for paintings. I get the image as perfect as I can in camera and move things around invariably when making the painting... after all, a painting is not a photograph and has different needs.
Peter
Peter the way you and others describe the Sony RX 10(s) or IV is sure making me lust after it. To think I can see something in my mind's eye as I walk and be able to frame it without considering what lens I have, is awesome to say the least.
JR
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One lens forces you to design and make that one lens work. ... When you have an option, you will doubt the choice and stop and change lenses. Often loosing the moment.
At the risk of seeming a photographic philistine, another obvious solution to that problem is using a single zoom lens. For me lately it has been an Olympus 12-60/2.8-4; (“24-120”); if I were on the 36x24mm EVF camera band-wagon it would probably be one of several excellent recent 24-105/4 options.
I am instinctively skeptical of “artistic” arguments in favor of restrictions that originated in technical limitations that have since been greatly mitigated: lenses limited to one focal length, manual focus, manual exposure, (36x24mm format :) ) ...
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And there you are: zooms, the one thing I no longer own, having only ever had one, and hating it with a vengeance.
They defeat the entire point for the non-assignment situation - for me - because of weight and the inevitable problem of blessed choices which are decidedly not what I want on a walkabout. If I remember the OP correctly, the thing is about finding a focal length that appeals, and using a zoom makes you hop from this to that and make that journey to visual identity so much longer and confusing than it need be.
Remember a time when people bought a Rolleiflex tlr and lived happily ever after?
Enough is enough, and more too much. At least at the beginning.
Photography for joy, I'm a one lens guy...So much better in all respects.
The zoom factor is a working lens for....work. Like I said earlier, these photos are for the making of paintings. To look at my reference photos, you would be hard pressed to find a winer. I mix parts of various images to make a painting.
Peter
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...using a zoom makes you hop from this to that and make that journey to visual identity so much longer and confusing than it need be.
Nonsense. Zooms do not make you do anything. They allow you to choose to change a focal length if you want to. You can set them at say 35mm before you leave the house and leave it there. No hopping about unless you choose to do so. Unless of course you have no self-control. You can either turn a zoom ring or change primes, or not. Just depends on how much equipment you feel compared to acquire in the name of purity.
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Best thing about 'em: they had no interest in politics at all! Well, neither they nor I ever raised the subject, so conclusions were there to be drawn.
:-)
Just shows you what our lives have become wasting all this time on the forums. :)
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Some of you guys are getting mxed up. This is not a discussion about the technical superiority or otherwise of primes or zooms. It is supposedly about something else. Read the OP a second time.
Rob
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Just shows you what our lives have become wasting all this time on the forums. :)
Amen.
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Just shows you what our lives have become wasting all this time on the forums. :)
We were young then; okay, some were never young at any age. Today, not so young. Some of the girls could be grandmothers now. Not anything wrong with grannies, but you probably know what I mean.
But models aside, had I a normal life these days I wouldn't be spending the time here or anywhere else on the Internet. For example: it's Saturday night in Mallorca; it was hitting 39 degrees C in the car when I started it up after lunch; the evening, now, is gorgeous. In better days we'd be sitting out on the terrace, maybe a candle lit, something cool being sipped, and my soul devouring the beauty in my wife's eyes, her smile, as that low light flickered and my mind wandered here and here. The reality these days is a friggin' iPad in my lap and music in my ears to mask the silence of nothing. Lonely, in the sense of wanting to go out to some bar? Heysoos no! That's the last thing I desire. Not lonely, empty.
It all changes; it always does.
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We were young then; okay, some were never young at any age. Today, not so young. Some of the girls could be grandmothers now. Not anything wrong with grannies, but you probably know what I mean.
But models aside, had I a normal life these days I wouldn't be spending the time here or anywhere else on the Internet. For example: it's Saturday night in Mallorca; it was hitting 39 degrees C in the car when I started it up after lunch; the evening, now, is gorgeous. In better days we'd be sitting out on the terrace, maybe a candle lit, something cool being sipped, and my soul devouring the beauty in my wife's eyes, her smile, as that low light flickered and my mind wandered here and here. The reality these days is a friggin' iPad in my lap and music in my ears to mask the silence of nothing. Lonely, in the sense of wanting to go out to some bar? Heysoos no! That's the last thing I desire. Not lonely, empty.
It all changes; it always does.
Ah. The meaning of life. Mid-life crises. I had sudden major surgery in April and escaped with my life - for now. The cuts still hurt. Every day is a good day when your six feet above ground rather than below. Not to get religious, but a good read of Ecclesiastes might help. He puts it all in perspective. He was one of us.
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One of my favorite quote's, to help keep things in perspective when the world seems to be going insane...
Peter
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Ah. The meaning of life. Mid-life crises. I had sudden major surgery in April and escaped with my life - for now. The cuts still hurt. Every day is a good day when your six feet above ground rather than below. Not to get religious, but a good read of Ecclesiastes might help. He puts it all in perspective. He was one of us.
Mid-life crisis? I have enjoyed two of them, the last one about twenty years ago!
Regarding things beyond our ken: I came to terms with my personal version of a god some time ago. That emotional compact has helped a great deal, as did some years in a boarding school, which I detested, but which geared me up to the technique of withdrawing into the self and letting the rest of the aggression roll past, as with terms in hospital, secure in the understanding that nothing is for ever, the bad as the good.
:-)
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I change the focal length not to change the view angle but to change the perspective and the working distance between the camera and the subject(s). For photographing people a 85mm to 105mm focal length provides both a more flattering perspective and a more comfortable camera to subject working distance.
Often with a landscape I need 85mm or long to not shrink the background perspective and turn mountains into mole hills. For example a photo with flowers in the foreground and Mount Rainer in the background will look the most natural with a 85mm lens and least like the scene one has visualized if using a 24mm focal length lens.
A common problem with photographers is that they do not examine the areas around the subject and include dead areas or distracting elements that they ignored when viewing the scene with their eyes but which the camera does not ignore. I have long believed that the conscious field of view is close to that of a 100mm focal length lens on a 35mm or full frame DSLR camera.
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Some of you guys are getting mxed up. This is not a discussion about the technical superiority or otherwise of primes or zooms. It is supposedly about something else. Read the OP a second time.
Rob
Indeed we have drifted! So back to that question:
- my suggested way to find one’s angular FOV preferences is to experiment by using a 4X or 5X standard zoom, and then look for patterns on one’s focal length choices
- for me the favourites turned out to be wide 28 or later 24) and somewhat narrower than normal. 70-100.
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Thank you all for your many and varied responses. Many of you suggested using a zoom lens to prevent limiting yourself and your choices. I think this option can make good sense. However, I think I’ve discovered that this approach evades the question I was trying to ask.
Without asking the question definitively I think I was trying to suggest that we may be limited by our physiology, by our psychology, by visual habits, regarding the way we see the world most naturally. I think with no camera to my eye I may be seeing the world as if through an inherent focal length 28, 35, 50, etc. If I know that my vision is tailored by God or by serendipity to an angle of view natural to me, then, if I align that angle of view with the angle of view I have on my camera I may be more comfortable and more successful in my photography. Many suggested using the zoom lens for a period of time and then looking back over your shoulder to discover which focal length was most used for the most photos which you deemed successful. I tried this for a while with the Fuji 18-55 and found that most of my “successful” images were right around 40mm. So going forward, I’m committing to the Fuji 27 mm for an extended period of time to see what the constraint will bring to my experience.
Thanks to all for the discussion. Peter
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I feel like 35mm on full frame best approximates what I see with a casual look but I often want my photo to reflect a different FOV to include or exclude elements as the image calls for. I also go through phases, like shooting lots of 300mm landscapes for a few weeks. Long landscapes can be especially good when the sky is clear and not going to make for an interesting compositional element. But then maybe I'll be more into the UWA if we get a good streak of clouds and sunsets/sunrises. Lately I've been shooting with my 24-70 and I notice I mostly shoot at 24 or 70 and less in between. For me it all seems to go in cycles, sometimes with the cycles of conditions, sometimes with what I'm into looking at the most right then.
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It really is just a matter of composition. What angle of view is needed, that is. If I try to get a pleasing image I just choose a prime which works at the circumstances, or adjust a zoom focal length. Zooms are convenient especially when travelling, and are plenty good enough nowadays and fast enough for travel/landscape stuff. The "way I see things" often connected to normal or 35mm lenses really matters only in context with street/documentary photography, which tries to show things "as they are" and try to convey a feeling of "being there" (large depth of field, etc), avoiding "artsy" technical effects not available to the eye like compressed perspective or shallow DOF. If we look at the world as interesting compositions there are no rules, all angles of view are allowed. Then even wide angle distortions do not matter, and often interesting details can be picked up with narrow angle long focal length lenses.
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I tried the one prime only for few days in a row in New York some years ago; can't say that I've found the light.
These days I tend to go for zooms when hiking and either zooms (for convenience) or primes (for specific look or experimenting) when traveling. It is a matter of time also though as I'm rarely alone with all the time in the world to prepare shots.
Now going back to the OP, I've found that the decision is mostly personal and most people cannot really explain it. For example I'm drawn more towards the longer FL and I have difficulties using consistently the ultrawides.