Hi everyone,

For many years now I’ve been very reluctant to go out without a telephoto lens of some sort in my bag, just in case, but I’ve finally decided not to carry one about as, for my interests, I just don’t use them or, if I do, then the number of shots I take with them is absolutely tiny compared to other focal lengths, it’s not that they’re not good lenses it’s just that I don’t end up using them. It’s the norm for me to get back and find that I haven’t used such a lens again all day. I think that it has a lot to do with the way that I compose my shots, the framing and perspective that works best for me or maybe the way that I “see” things.

By far the vast majority of my shots are taken in the moderate wide angle to standard focal length range.  I prefer to have an ultra-wide option like my 9-18mm (18-36mm) zoom with me which is very useful, apart from anything else,  for multi-frame panorama composites but 12mm (24mm) is as far as I usually require and that’s quite often a bit too wide and this is why I don’t usually pack my M.Zuiko 12mm f/1.8  lens as it is too specialised and would get used just about as much as a telephoto would, possibly even less. I know it sounds bizarre, a landscape photographer that doesn’t want to pack a fast wide angle prime lens in the bag. 🙂 . As a general rule I prefer a somewhat tighter framing as the details in very wide landscape shots are pretty small. I like to compose and frame there and then and I very rarely crop in post.

I’ve been raving a lot recently about my tiny Lumix 12-32mm (24-64mm) lens which I’ve got to know very well and it’s so small and light in terms of sharpness, focal length coverage and weight it’s a lens that I can leave fitted nearly all the time without having the requirement to change lenses unless I want to switch to a small faster prime lens like my Olympus 17mm (34mm) f/1.8 or Lumix 14mm (28mm) f/2.5 when the light is very low or my 9-18mm if I need need to go wider or my back’s up against the wall so as to speak, 🙂 as it was ,quite literally, when I was taking these shots taken with my 9-18mm.

I guess that once in a while I might have cause to wish that I had a longer lens with me but I can live with those very rare eventualities as, after all this time having taken thousands of images, I can speak very much from personal experience, it’s just not worth the extra weight and space in my bag .

Kind regards

Leigh