Weekly #13 -- Monday, February 11, 2019

The human eye supposedly sees somewhere around what a 45mm (full frame equivalent) lens sees… in other words, the angle of view is similar. For me, I am drawn to anywhere from 50mm to about 100mm. In the past, I have spent a fair amount of time using just a 50mm lens trying to become familiar with its angles and how it works. I then did the same with a 100mm lens. As a result, I love this range.

One general tip on composition is to “fill the frame” and I find it much easier to do this with lenses that are longer than 50mm. I don’t have the same understanding of wider focal lengths. Perhaps it is that, to fill the frame, the subject must be bigger (or you must be closer) (or your concept of a subject must be broader than just one “thing”). Perhaps it is that wider focal lengths offer more distortion and I find this less agreeable. Perhaps it is the greater depth of field and possibly less separation of foreground from background. Whatever the reason, the experience is different and I am not drawn to wider focal lengths. However, it could also simply be that I haven’t spent the same amount of time with them.

I need to build a wider perspective and, as a test, I am going to dedicate time to using a 24mm lens. This is 24mm on a camera with a “full frame” sensor which becomes 35mm on a camera with a APS-C sensor. While this focal length is not considered extremely wide-angle, it should be good practice for me. It lets in more of the scene than I am accustomed to but it is only a step away from being a “normal” lens (as opposed to wide angle).

We’ll see how this goes! In the end, I am curious to see if there is a notable difference.

I hope you are well!