I'm behind on my mail again -- I've read the first several
messages in this thread but am not caught up. I wanted to chime
in anyhow, because I too had been thinking about primes vs.
zooms recently. Basically, I started noticing more the ways in
which I use both types of lenses. Some of this I've described
in past zoom/prime discussions; I've just found my attention
drawn to it while shooting lately.
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SHOOTING STYLE:
I'm not at all sure this was true earlier, but lately (by which
I mean the last few weeks) I've noticed that my shooting style
influences my lens choices more than the other way around. I do
have more than one shooting style, and at least two of them are
unfortunately lazy. (Sometimes I tell myself I have a good
excuse.)
If I'm going to be mostly stuck in one place or a small area
(not free to move far from my seat; only one place to stand
where the subject is reasonably visible; etc.) and want to be
able to vary my field of view, *or* if I'm being too lazy to
move around as much as I ought, a zoom is the obvious choice.
I'll use the zoom as an in-camera cropping tool. Even more so
if I find myself wanting those "in between" focal lengths that I
don't have in primes. But sometimes I'll stand there with an
array of primes and do pretty much the same thing by changing
lenses instead of adjusting a zoom. "Hmm. I just shot that
with the 85 ... how does it look with the 50? Oh, let me get
more of the background with the 28 just to see how that works."
Go figure -- I can find a way to be just as lazy, or to solve
the same legitimate problem, with a stack of primes -- it's just
less convenient.
On the other hand, if I'm moving around a lot, I may have a
prime (or the wrong range of zoom) mounted, and will be too lazy
to go fetch a different lens when I ought to. I'll move back
and forth and around and crouch down or stretch to eliminate
distracting background elements or to get the light (or the
subject) from the right angle or to get surrounding objects into
a "framing" composition, and sometimes I'll make a less than
perfect choice of distance to get the magnification I want when
I should have switched lenses instead. Of course, if I have a
zoom lens mounted at the time, I'll move around just as much for
the composition but will do that final adjustment of
magnification with the zoom. (Once in a while I remind myself
that asking the lab to crop the image for me is an option, and
I'll shoot wider than I really want with a plan to crop it
later.) Sometimes not going to fetch a different lens is
laziness. Sometimes it's because the subject isn't going to
stay put long enough, either because it's in motion or because
it's a person who is getting impatient.
One advantage of carrying multiple bodies is that I
could have the same (or similar) film loaded in each,
with lenses of different focal lengths mounted -- this
makes the change of focal length much faster than
removing one lens and mounting another. But I seldom
take advantage of that option because I usually load
each body with a different type of film so that I can
shoot C41, BW, and slides (or two C41 films of different
speeds or with very different looks) at the same time.
It's so nice to have a choice of apropriate tools so that I can
do things wrong in so many different ways. Oh, right, sometimes
it means I do things right, using the right tool for the job, as
well. I need to work on making the latter happen more often
than the former.
==================================================
LIGHT:
None of my zooms are all that fast. f/3.5, f/4, f/4.5, f/5.8.
If I know I'm going to really want a zoom, I'll load faster
film. If I specifically want a slower film or if I know I'm not
going to have enough light, I'll use a prime -- f/1.4, f/1.8,
f/2, f/2.8. If I'm shooting in daylight, I've got all the
options available (though I may still put faster film in one
body if I plan to use the ancient 400/6.3 preset). The point is
that I sometimes make the zoom/prime decision on the basis of
light and subject, and sometimes choose my film based on whether
I plan to use zooms or primes. Laziness is less of a factor in
my film choices than it is in anything else, but even there, I
sometimes choose a faster film just so that I won't have to
think as much about which lenses to use or how to support the
camera. If I weren't so fond of Provia 100F, Portra 160NC, and
my dwindling supply of Kodachrome 25, I might be lazy about film
choice more often.
Note that I shoot mostly handheld ... again, sometimes
for very good reasons such as needing mobility, not
having space to set up a tripod, or being somewhere
tripods are not permitted; and sometimes it's because
I'm too lazy to carry the tripod or too lazy to set it
up and adjust it.
If I choose a prime for its speed, I'll probably adjust my
shooting style to one apropriate for using a prime lens. But I
may get lazy and either tell myself, "Oh, I'll have the lab crop
it later," or constantly switch between 28mm, 50mm, 85mm, and
135mm lenses as quickly as I can. (28mm, 55mm, and 135mm if I'm
using screwmount gear.)
==================================================
FOCAL LENGTH:
Then there's the "afraid I'll miss a shot by having the wrong
focal length" problem... When I go out with a single "just in
case a picture jumps up in front of me" camera and one lens,
I'll usually grab the 50/1.8 or 85/2 at night (my two fastest
K-mount lenses, and generally useable lengths) or the 35-105/3.5
in the daytime (or when I feel like clipping on a flash unit and
expect to be able to use it). The zoom is there for the obvious
reason: in case I need something wider than a 50mm and in case I
need something longer than a 50mm. It really is a nice little
walking-around lens, despite its size and weight.
Y'all remember the comments a while back about how most zoom
lenses get used most often at one extreme or the other? Yeah,
I do that some of the time too (though not as much when I'm
using the "crop with the zoom" shooting style). The problem is
that I really am, to some extent, a creature of extremes. I
tend to go long far more often than I go wide, but when I do
decide I want a wide-angle lens, 35mm is seldom enough. The
crippled Kalimar 24/2.8 (damaged in that burglary several months
ago) is still in my bag for those times when the 28/3.5 isn't
wide enough either (and I can manage to make the damaged 24mm
work for the shot). And 105mm? Well if I go that long, I
usually start wishing I had 200mm available and enough light to
go with it. (My lenses in the 200mm range are f/4, only a
smidgen slower than the 35-105/3.5, but I want a higher shutter
speed with the longer lenses since I'm usually shooting
handheld. So I want more light and/or faster film at that
length.)
So what's the 35-105 good for if I so often want something both
longer and wider? Well, it _does_ give me normal and portrait
lengths -- each of which I do use often -- in one lens, which is
certainly convenient, and I can often make do with 35mm or 105mm
even if I really want 28mm or 210mm. I'm _happy_ with the
35-105 from about 45mm to 90mm; it's when I reach its extremes
that I find myself wanting something more extreme. For a
"just in case a picture happens" lens, it's a very reasonable
range.
Ah, but how does this tie into the shooting style question?
Well this is one situation in which lens choice _is_ likely to
affect my shooting style, but it's probably not as simple as,
"I've got a zoom so I'll be lazy". I _am_ more likely to use my
zoom instead of my feet when I'm using a zoom as a
walking-around lens, but I'm also already in a mindset along the
lines of, "Oh, let me try to capture that quickly and get back
to what I was really supposed to be doing," to begin with. If
the subject captures my imagination and attention enough to
switch my brain into "serious photographer mode" instead of
merely being a snapshot, then I'll go back to walking around to
find a composition I like. I can be snapshot-lazy with a prime
as well: move in for the desired magnification, take the
picture, let my mind go back to what I was doing before, and
later look at the proofs and think, "Gee, I should have crouched
down so that roofline didn't cut it right there, and maybe tried
to catch this shadow differently..."
==================================================
THE LONG-AWAITED CONCLUSION:
While it's true that zooms do make certain types of laziness
easier, I would have to say that
at least _for_me_, and
at least _this_Autumn_,
zooms don't actually seem to affect my shooting style as much as
my shooting style of the day affects my decision whether to use
a zoom or not. And I can find ways to be just as lazy with
primes, even if I have to work at it.
-- Glenn
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