Hi everyone,

This morning I set off with just my Lumix 14mm lens. Absolutely nothing wrong with this lens or any of my other dedicated wide angle lenses and that includes my Olympus 9-18mm,12mm and 17mm lenses and the Lumix 14mm as well as the wide end of my zoom lenses but, generally-speaking, they’re all too wide for me.

I think there’s several factors in play, firstly I prefer to crop tighter in camera, with the singular exception of where I like to give myself some “wiggle room” to correct in post for converging verticals, and I have to get a lot closer, assuming that’s possible, to do this with my wide angle lenses to get the framing that works for me. Otherwise I have to crop in post, something that I don’t want to have to do, somewhat defeats the point of having a 16 or 20 MP sensor if one has to habitually discard a significant portion of the image. Secondly, there’s the matter when shooting landscapes, of everything being too small, fine if one habitually does large prints but, in anything smaller than say 20×16 inches or thereabouts, the fine detail gets lost to the eye. Lastly it could just be as simple as dating back to my very first experience with lenses and the “nifty fifty” focal length. So, when I do shoot wide, I get proportionately fewer keepers and, as a rule of thumb, the wider I go the fewer they get,

Likewise, I find telephoto lenses too tight framing for my general needs so it boils down to the middle ground, a relatively narrow range somewhere a bit either side of the “standard” lens focal length which is why my Lumix 20mm (40mm equivalent) lens works very well for me when I’m shooting with a prime lens. It’s always useful to have a standard zoom like my 12-45mm, 12-40mm, 12-60mm or 14-42mm etc. especially when travelling as one never knows what one might find but, looking at my shots taken with my wide angle to short telephoto zoom lenses and what focal length used again a very high proportion are roughly somewhere in the middle of the zoom range. I don’t consciously set out to limit myself it just seems to usually work out this way. Of course this is purely subjective and down to the way my mind’s eye sees things and my preferred choice of subject matter.

Kind regards

Leigh

Hi everyone,

I absolutely love this deliciously eclectic fun shop in Bognor. Shots taken with one of my smallest and stealthiest camera lens combinations my Olympus E-PL5 and 15mm body cap lens. One of the signs inside reads “Useless crap that you don’t need at a price you won’t like” A refreshingly honest sales pitch!.

Kind regards

Leigh