Archive for the 'canon 17-85mm' Category
Narrow horizons
Usually when I’m bored out of my head, I entertain myself by browsing through pictures on the photo forums I normally don’t look at. I guess I’m less irritable when I’m bored… Anyway, today I came to think that it’s strange I hardly ever visit the macro forum although I love to take close-up pictures myself. But I guess that’s it – I do close-ups and very rarely go to genuine macro magnifications. Or maybe I don’t like macro because I just can’t do it (although, come to think of it, I’ve never tried). But generally speaking, extreme macro is a little bit like wideangles – you really need to know what you’re doing in order to create a good image. Otherwise it’s just a horrible mess. I should know… because I suck at wideangle photography. I’ve really tried to improve it, I’ve travelled to new places and found fantastic views – but never made a wideangle image I could really be proud of.I checked my portfolio images for the number of wideangle photos I have there. Not many. In fact, the average focal length of my portfolio images is 158mm. I have played with the thought of swapping my 17-85mm lens (that’s 28-135mm full frame) with the new Canon instead, 24-105mm f4L (38-168mm ff). The extra mm’s at the tele end would make this perfect as an all-round lens and the constant aperture is nice. So I had to find out if those missing wideangle millimeters would be a problem and according to my portfolio sample, I have used the wider view in 7% of the images. That’s not much. I’m sure that the percentage of wideangle images is bigger in my catalogue as a whole. That’s because I use the wideangle for documentation images – you know, the images you just want to take even though you realise beforehand that you will not get any keepers. Souvenirs, in other words. So the downside of going from 17-85mm to 24-105mm is that I will have less options for documentary images. I would say… it’s time for me to narrow my horizons.
No commentsThe other side
Sometimes I wonder if I’m a little bit agoraphobic. I don’t really have a genuine fear of open spaces but I have noticed that I have a genuine tendency to prefer enclosed spaces – I’m not talking small closets, but wide closed spaces like forests or small lakes. Places like sea shores or big lakes – anything where all you see is a straight horizon – make me a bit uneasy. I just think that it’s unnatural, that’s all. I was born and raised by a lake where the opposing shore with all its forests was always visible. Maybe there’s a kind of security I unconsciously seek, just need to see the other side. Standing by the sea and looking out at the horizon requires faith to believe in the opposing shore but the only thing I seem to believe is what I see.
So it’s easy to explain why I love Sweden so much. There are small forest lakes a-plenty, not to mention the forests themselves. Maybe that’s why I almost take it personally when I see clear-cut forests – my security blanket is gone!My version of agoraphobia is often reflected in my photographs as well. The cynical view – and I never shy away from that – is that I’m just not very good with wideangle lenses so I take my landscapes with longer focal lengths to hide the fact. But the Freudian view is that I have no reason to learn to use wideangle lenses because the wide landscape just simply doesn’t appeal to me, period. I do take the occasional wide shot, but looking at my album, my best work is undoubtedly with the enclosed, intimate scenics. For a while back I toyed with the idea of bying the Sigma 15mm f2.8 diagonal fish-eye lens to help me out of my photographic slump, but now that I got my Canon 300mm f4L, I can’t see any reason to play with extreme wideangles anymore. The telephoto lens has opened up a new world for me where close-ups are possible like never before. Now I feel that I don’t need to re-invent myself anymore – the other side is right here.
The seaside image was taken in 2003 with Canon EOS 5, Tokina 20-35mm f2.8 lens @ wide end. I sold the lens last year.
The forest lake image was taken on Sunday with Canon 20D, 17-85mm @ 76mm (35mm equivalent 122mm). I’m keeping the lens.
