I have a headache and am not sure how coherent this is going to
wind up being, but here goes anyhow. I need to wrap this up
and get back to work, so I'm going to be a bit more lazy with my
text-editing than I'd usually allow myself... How, ah, ironically
_a_propos_. Didn't plan it that way, honest.
Paal responds to Mafud:
> You need to be a good photographer to take full advantage of a zoom
Probably true of taking *full* advantage of any lens, but I'll grant
that with more to control on a zoom, there's more to learn how to use
well.
> Zooms have the ability of making the photographer lazy; instead of
> playing around with perspective and try different vantage point, a
> zoom lens may make the photographer lazy by just zooming.
But even on this point, which there doesn't seem to be much disagreement
about overall, I must say that there is a flip side. Because a zoom
lens allows one to change the magnification on the fly, _more_ vantage
points become useable than with a prime. A truly diligent (and well
equipped!) photographer may walk all around a subject, view it from
different distances, and choose the prime that frames the subject the
way he or she desires when standing in the spot he or she determines
to present the most effective image. But I'm a lot _more_ likely to
wander around and try various distances if I have a zoom, so that I
don't have to keep changing lenses to see what I've got. Yes, that's
some laziness, but if you make the job more difficult, I have incentive
to be lazier still and stick to the distances that work with the one
lens I've got mounted. BTDT -- this is not hypothetical.
A _really_ well equipped photographer will, of course, also have
reflectors, shades, and backdrops, and assistants to help position them.
In comparison, am I lazy, cheap, or both? ;-)
(Someone said he can nail the required focal length 95% of the time
when looking at a scene. Great. I'm not there yet. Granted, I'll
learn that skill more slowly with a zoom, but then the question becomes,
"Why am I out there _today_; to study and practice, or to get this
photo?" Ideally (and fairly often, really) I'll do both at the same
time, but sometimes that's a luxury. As it is, I can come pretty close
to picking the right focal length before I mount the lens on the camera
reasonably often -- a lot less than 19/20 but enough to speed things up
a wee bit -- but I often find myself wanting a focal length that I don't
have in a prime (a separate reason for zooms) or wanting to tweak the
framing (crop in the viewfinder) just a smidgen from one of the
conventional lengths after I've found my vantage point.)
So I'd say that zooms have the potential to make a photographer lazy
as described above, but that avoiding them is no guaranteed cure!
In fact, a zoom _may_, depending on the individual, be better from
a "risk of inducing laziness" standpoint. Sometimes.
Real-world example: I have 28, 35, 50, 85, 200, and 400 primes in K
mount, and 28, 35, 50, 55, 135, and 200 primes in M42. Sticking to
primes, To get 100mm, I need to use a 2x on an M42 50mm (since my
K-mount teleconverters were stolen in the burglary). If I want 85mm,
I have to shoot K-mount. To get a 65mm point of view / perspective /
magnification with a prime, I have to crop after the fact. Sometimes
a teleconverter is too expensive (I usually shoot handheld, not always
in daylight -- two stops is a lot, plus the loss of sharpness...). I
often carry enough bodies at a time to make other people shake their
heads[*], but still, with _what_I've_got_, doing things properly with
primes would mean at least one K-mount and one M42 body for each
type of film I wanted to have loaded, rather than putting different
film in each; or it would mean a lot of cropping. Or, until I train
myself to see how I can crop later, it'll mean dismissing a lot of
possible vantage points for not providing me the framing I want.
[Note to self: Buy a g_____n M42-K adaptor already...]
Maybe I _do_ need to remind myself more often, "I can always crop
this later," but my gut instinct has me composing in the viewfinder
out of habit. And maybe I should indulge my instinct by using
zooms when I want those in-between lengths. And maybe I should be
saving up for in-between primes. Or maybe, just maybe, the right
answer is "all of the above", because each tool has its place?
IIRC, this thread started off from a comment about learning to
crop, n'est-ce pas? And a parallel thread is discussing the
virtues and evils of cropping (and to a much larger extent, simply
whether HCB cropped). Both cropping and zoom lenses give the
photographer more flexibility. Both _can_ lead to either laziness
or a greater range of expression. Sloppy composition "because I
can crop it later" is one side of the laziness coin. Not taking
the final step that would transform a so-so photograph into a
powerful visual statement because one can't be bothered to crop
is the other side of the same coin. (Refusing to crop out of
idealism or because you bloody well did get it right the first time
is a completely separate matter, not what I speak of here.)
I have not gone back over the various messages to see the relationship
between the set of people arguing (to varying degrees) for or against
zooms and those arguing for or against cropping, so I don't know
whether there's anyone arguing against _both_, but it seems to me
that to deny both would be to pointlessly limit the artist's options.
Hey, when I shoot a subject with funky lighting, using my Super
Program, I often just make a guess and turn the exposure compensation
dial. Is that lazy because I didn't use a spotmeter or walk over
to the subject with an incident meter and come up with an EV for
each part of the scene? Or is that conscientious because I took
the time to recognize that it was a situation likely to fool my
meter and throw in some compensation based on rule-of-thumb experience?
Does my Super Program make me lazy? (If I shoot mostly in aperture-
priority mode with it, does _that_ make me lazy? Does my using
pre-Spotmatic bodies at other times make up for it?) If I see
something that would be especially cool on a different type of film
than I have loaded, and I shoot it with what I've got instead of
rewinding the film in a body, marking what frame to advance to later,
and loading a roll of the "right" film, am I being lazy, or merely
reasonable? Does using 35mm make me lazy regarding film choices?
If so, do the advantages of the format (including being more likely
to have a camera with me in the first place, the speed to get
candids and action phtos, and the flexibility to not use a tripod)
make up for whatever laziness not using a view camera engenders?
Perspective. Perspective and context.
It has been said that a photographer should not be his own editor.
It is good to be able to compose beautifully in the viewfinder,
and that is something we should, when possible, take the time and
effort to do, but allowing cropping means that it's possible for
the photographer to ask a second set of eyes to provide editing
suggestions. Or to finish the job when careful composition was
simply not possible for the shot. Using a zoom lens makes it easier
for the photographer to get the composition right in the first place
(if, yes, if he or she doesn't let it make him or her lazy.)
Yeah, I want all the tools, and I want to learn how to use all
of them well, and I want to learn when to use each. Got a ways
to go, but I'm working on it. :-)
-- Glenn
* I carry multiple bodies when I'm going out hunting photos. When
I've just got a "carry with me just in case" camera, it's one body
and one lens, and at those times I make no excuses for, nor feel
any guilt or shame for, whatever laziness I practice in getting a
quick shot of a surprise subject while I'm not "in photographer mode".
And ya wanna know something? An SMC-A 35-105/3.5 makes a handy
little "just in case" lens. (Okay, maybe not "little"...)
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