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Author Topic: Medium Range Zooms not for Pros??  (Read 229037 times)

Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Medium Range Zooms not for Pros??
« Reply #20 on: October 28, 2017, 02:21:25 pm »

It's important to distinguish between even photographers (sports, meetings, weddings, etc.) and landscape/outdoor photographers.  Even photographers have constantly shifting things going on around them that they need to document.  If one is indoors (weddings, meetings) it's a different piece of cake than if it's a sporting event.  Even with sporting events things may be different in terms of distance from the action (basketball vs football).  The lens choice is likely to be different in all of the above cases and certainly in my observation, 'most' event photographers don't use anything over a mid range zoom.  Sports are different and a longer distance lens is needed.  If we take the point of view that a pro photographer is someone who earns their principal income through photography then the mid-range zoom is clearly a pro lens.

As an aside.  in the late 2000s I hired a couple of women in entry level positions doing pharmaceutical regulatory work.  They directly reported to me and we were talking one day about photography (a number of my images were and still are hanging in the departmental office area.  I encouraged them to pursue photography and gave them lessons in LR, lens selection and even sold my old Nikon to one of them.  They started doing free event photography for friends to gain experience and then moved in to charging; both are now successful event photographers in major eastern cities and one has shot at NY Fashion Week several times.  I take no credit in their evolution as they turned out to be far better photographer than I am and it's nice to see them succeed.  they use mid-range zooms for weddings.
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Rob C

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Re: Medium Range Zooms not for Pros??
« Reply #21 on: October 29, 2017, 02:03:27 pm »

It's important to distinguish between even photographers (sports, meetings, weddings, etc.) and landscape/outdoor photographers.  Even photographers have constantly shifting things going on around them that they need to document.  If one is indoors (weddings, meetings) it's a different piece of cake than if it's a sporting event.  Even with sporting events things may be different in terms of distance from the action (basketball vs football).  The lens choice is likely to be different in all of the above cases and certainly in my observation, 'most' event photographers don't use anything over a mid range zoom.  Sports are different and a longer distance lens is needed.  If we take the point of view that a pro photographer is someone who earns their principal income through photography then the mid-range zoom is clearly a pro lens.

As an aside.  in the late 2000s I hired a couple of women in entry level positions doing pharmaceutical regulatory work.  They directly reported to me and we were talking one day about photography (a number of my images were and still are hanging in the departmental office area.  I encouraged them to pursue photography and gave them lessons in LR, lens selection and even sold my old Nikon to one of them.  They started doing free event photography for friends to gain experience and then moved in to charging; both are now successful event photographers in major eastern cities and one has shot at NY Fashion Week several times.  I take no credit in their evolution as they turned out to be far better photographer than I am and it's nice to see them succeed.  they use mid-range zooms for weddings.

Funny thing: in my era as a pro, weddings etc. didn't rate much as pro... Pro meant advertising, architecture, fashion, sport, news. High street (aka weddings, babies, portraits and dogs) was something else if only because many wedding "studios" depended on weekend warriors doing something different for a living to come forward and do the work. Not much more needed to be said - or thought.

Art, as in art photographer, didn't exist in the UK lexicon, though it probably did quite early on in the US of A one. I didn't hear about St Ansel until I was already gainfully employed; I can't think of anyone before the advent of the Photographer's Gallery (London) who thought about art as a way of the camera keeping one fed. In fact, as I remember it, even that place had a left political agenda with emphasis on Brit versions of the huddled masses... The first full-on photo-art gallery I knew about was Hamilton's, also London. I mean, even my hero Saul had to work in fashion to make his pictures support him. And that wasn't easy, if he's to be believed. So yeah, art photography existed insofar as some photographers were also artists...

Rob
« Last Edit: October 29, 2017, 02:18:44 pm by Rob C »
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