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You're personally excited about wide-angle lenses and you seem to be convinced that everyone else will feel the same way about them, for candids of friends and
by klodolph 4y ago
You're personally excited about wide-angle lenses and you seem to be convinced that everyone else will feel the same way about them, for candids of friends and family, and I just don't think that's true. You say that longer lenses create "emotional distance" but this is, to be honest, one of the most horeshit photography opinions I've heard. The lens doesn't create emotional anything, it just changes what you get in the frame.
I like the way the photos in the article look. They're not your style.
I’ve spent time with a lot of other hobby photographers and there’s always a few people with preferences like yours, but it’s never been a majority, and most photographers I’ve met have the humility to recognize that their own personal choices aren’t automatically the right choices for others.
> Who cares. If you fail to capture a memorable moment because you were busy looking into the viewfinder focusing and framing, you fail, period. Very hard to do with a wide lens.
Framing is not a problem that goes away if you use wide-angle lens. You can shoot wide and crop later, but all you're doing is changing when you're making the framing decisions, and the crop-later approach has the disadvantage that when you crop, it's too late to reframe. Framing is not easier with wide-angle lenses versus normal lenses. It's easier to get something in-frame, but harder to keep something out.
There's no "default" lens which is right for everyone or every circumstance.
I'm also not sure why it would take me longer to frame or focus with a 50mm lens. For candids, I almost always use an autofocus camera these days. It focuses at the touch of a button.
> Wow. A prime of 90mm poses way too many constraints to work with.
I've been using a 90mm equivalent for a long, long time. It's my go-to lens for when a friend who's a makeup artist or costume designer wants a good picture of their work, or when somebody wants a simple portrait, and I think it's easy to work with.
Maybe I just got used to working within those constraints. And maybe... just maybe... you got used to working with the constraints of a 35mm lens, and you've forgotten what it felt like when you were first dealing with those constraints.
I've done a lot of personal with 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm equivalent primes. There's a reason why people who get a set of three prime lenses most often get three lenses in this range or something similar--like 28mm, 45mm, 110mm.
It's easy to fall in love with the look of a wide-angle lens and then get disillusioned with it. You find that you're including too much stuff in-frame that you don't want, or you find that you're shooting too close to people and they look distorted. That's why I recommend that people spend some time with a wide-angle lens before deciding if they want to purchase a camera with a fixed wide-angle lens, like the Ricoh GR III. The Ricoh GR III is like $900 and forces you to use a 28mm perspective or crop in post--not everyone is going to like that.
- throwaway290 4y agoWell, more than anything I wanted to present an alternative viewpoint. The author presented his as if it's the only way. I arrived at my understanding after years of learning about photography and experience of doing it not professionally, taking tends of thousands of photos of all sorts of subjects. I think the point about emotional distance is under-appreciated. Of course, this author (and I don't know why) clearly wanted to create the distance--you can see it by frequent use of monochrome/sepia coloring that mimics the nostalgic look of old photos. However, this was left unsaid, and someone may miss this factor when choosing the lens based on this article. > Framing is not a problem that goes away if you use wide-angle lens. ... It's easier to get something in-frame, but harder to keep something out. The core task is different IMO. When you are enjoying family time, especially with children, it's more important to 1) get something in frame in any way possible fast while 2) still being in the moment yourself than with other types of photography. If you are shooting children as models that's different, sure. > I'm also not sure why it would take me longer to frame or focus with a 50mm lens. For candids, I almost always use an autofocus camera these days. It focuses at the touch of a button. If you haven't tried wide-all-the-time, try. I shot a lot wide (20-28mm), 40-50mm and 75mm. With wider lenses I often shot from the hip with subsecond time between the moment and the shot, and got interesting dynamic frames (and I rarely crop). It just doesn't happen already at ~40mm, even if I spam shoot, I need to see the frame. As to focus, you don't even need to focus many ~25mm lenses if you shoot with moderately closed aperture (just leave it around 5m~infinity). A longer lens makes it much easier for subject to be off, I have to make sure focus is right and a compact camera's autofocus is rarely reliable enough in low light to capture action. Remember that this is candid family shots, there's no proper lighting. And 75mm, while great for street portraits or casual fashion, is additionally unusable as a main driver for candid family shots since in a random room you often can't back far enough away to capture enough of the action. In the circumstances described it's easier to come closer rather than opposite. I thought 40-50mm would be a nice middle ground, but it doesn't give the really pronounced separation, bokeh and aesthetics of longer lenses like 75mm yet it does make things more challenging in all regards for no good (to me) reason. I find it OK for street shots but now I am more informed about its limitations in other scenarios.
- klodolph 4y ago