Sizing-up your photography scenes
A few months ago, I received a question about how I size-up locations to determine what I’m going to shoot and what lens I’m going to use. I’ll touch on this question today.
Here’s the question:
I have often felt that the lens in on my camera often determines how I “see.” (Wide angle means I see broadly, 70-200 I am seeing smaller detail.). Is that typical or do I need to spend more time “sizing up” before I think of shooting?
My simple answer is “Yes.” This is two-fold:
People don’t like to change lenses. It’s work to take off your camera pack, take the current lens off, pull out a different lens and put it on. So, typically people shoot and see with the lens that they have on the camera.
I think that unless you are purposefully restricting yourself to shoot at specific focal lengths you should size-up the scene before selecting gear. IMHO, this is the best practice.
As an example, take the below photo. I shoot near this location often. I had originally anticipated shooting to the east of here, but when I got to the shore it wasn’t speaking to me. At the spot east of here, I’ll typically shoot at around 24mm to make the background bigger in my shot.
When I walked to this spot, I loved how the waves were washing up on the shore. I loved the curve the waves created, and I thought that I’d like to include the rock on the left for sure. To balance that rock, I wanted to include a rock on the right. That would also complete the curve.
I thought about all of this before getting out my camera. Luckily, I had my 14-30mm on my camera, so I didn’t have to change lenses. But if I had had a 24-120mm or a 100-400mm on my camera and was limiting my ideas to the lens on my camera, I wouldn’t have seen this shot.
Figuring out what I wanted to include in the shot and what gear I needed to use was fun and challenging.
The same thing happened with the following shot. The clouds in the sky were fantastic and the color was happening all over the shot. I wanted to take advantage of that, so I looked around until I found a foreground that echoed the shapes in the sky. I took a photo. To make that work, I used 17mm.
It seemed like something was still missing, so I walked into the shot and shot a selfie. I wanted to look small among the landscape, because I personally believe that we are so little and mostly nothing when compared to the great expanse of space and time that surrounds us. Using a wide angle lens helped me visually see what I was feeling.
Figuring out how to create that feeling in a static, two-dimensional image was challenging and fun.
Here’s another example. Every year when they pull the yacht club’s docks out of the water, it’s a big production with a lot of action. I was shooting a bunch of different pictures and waiting for something exciting to happen, and then they started having difficulty getting a wheel box under a float.
To make the shot work, I’d need to shoot tight and zoomed in. I was hoping for an interesting expression from someone. I had a couple of choices. I could have waded into the cold water with a wide lens to get that shot. That would have resulted in a little more dramatic of an angle with a lot of blue sky. But I wanted to show the fall color on the hills in the background. To make a background appear large compared to your foreground, you go with a longer focal length and shoot from further away. I ended up shooting with a 70-200 at 180mm.
Making those decisions were fun and challenging, and when this happened it was very rewarding.
In all the above examples, I sized-up the scene to determine what interested me before making a choice of focal length.
But…wait…
It doesn’t have to work that way. Sometimes I like the challenge of being forced into seeing a certain way.
I have a Ricoh GRIII which has a fixed 28mm lens. That restriction feels freeing sometimes. You don’t have to make a decision about focal length, you only have to make a decision about what will fit within the focal length that you currently have. Because the focal length is fixed, there’s no zooming and there’s no changing lenses. It’s always 28mm (there are crop modes that I don’t use).
So, when I wanted to take a picture of a chicken on a kitchen table in an old cabin, I had to get close to the chicken. When you get close to a chicken with a 28mm lens, it makes the chicken look large and slightly distorted. That’s fun. I knew I also wanted to included the fireplace and pots and pans with the chicken (foreshadowing the chicken’s fate), so I knew I couldn’t get too close. This shot would have been a little easier to get from further away with a zoom lens because I wouldn’t have spooked the chicken, but I had no choice because I was stuck with 28mm.
It was fun and challenging.
Last October, I picked up a 40mm f/2 prime lens. Because it’s small, it’s really nice to use as a carry around lens on my Z7ii or Z8. It’s also great for infrared. I find it rewarding to be forced to see in 40mm. It’s not wide but it isn’t a normal 50mm either. It’s a bit of almost wide and a bit of almost normal and a bit of neither. It forces me to see in a new and different way, which I find rewarding and fun.
Take this shot as an example. This was a popup apple stand on the streets of Grand Marais. Because I only had the 40mm with me, I was forced to figure out the exact right angle to include the fun sign, the apples in the background and the people. The lens forced the choices onto me, which was challenging and fun.
As one last example of using a fixed focal length, I bought a 35mm f/1.4 specifically to be able to shoot Milky Way shots and make the Milky Way’s core look large in the shot. To make that work in photos, I have to find something interesting to put into the shot. So, I’m always looking for items that will work with that focal length.
I also shot a multi-year project using just that lens. It was my Found Bike Project. I found old bikes and took photos of them with just the 35mm f/1.4 lens (or a 105mm f/2.8). I actually passed on taking some photos of cool old bikes because I didn’t have the lens with me. Without the lens, they wouldn’t have fit into the project.
It was fun and challenging.
Focal choice selection is interesting. You can deliberately confine your choice to a specific focal length by shooting a prime lens or a fixed lens camera, such as the Ricoh GRIII or a 40mm like I do. You can deliberately confine your choice to a range of focal lengths by using a zoom lens. You can figure out how you want to take the photo first and then pick a focal length.
All those choices work.
But why?
Because we’re creating art, and art involves a lot of arbitrary choices and restrictions that only matter if they are meaningful to the artist.
So, to answer the reader’s question, “Yes.” Yes, it is typical, and, yes, you should size-up the scene before shooting. What restrictions you place upon yourself through lens choices are going to be part of how you see. You can restrict that choice to all the lenses in your bag or to just the lens on your camera. Either way is fine. Either way is fun and challenging. It’s your art, so it’s up to you.
If you want a challenge, try working in a way that you don’t typically work. There are rewards in new challenges.
Until next time
I’d be curious about what you think. Leave a comment on Substack letting me know. I’ll see you again in two weeks, and until then here’s a parting shot.
Thank you for this article, I got a lot out of it. I'm happy with the progress I have made in creating visually captivating images with various focal length choices. However, the emotion and feeling that is conveyed by each photo is something I tend to realize after the fact. Your description of the photo in which you placed yourself in the image with the intent of creating a feeling you WANT to convey was eye opening. Intentionally creating a feeling with lens and composition choices is the next level of artistry and photography to strive towards!
For the longest time I had several primes in the focal lengths you often use. A 28mm, a 35mm and a 40mm. But even when I got the "holy trinity", the 24 to 50 ish is (using that tool you showed sometime back to analyze focal lengths in LR) is still something I use a lot. The point about changing lenses is something I've found, too. Aside from your recent class, and now I know why this lens will be my "astrophotography lens", I don't take the 16-35 out with me much and ever change to it, relying on the 24-105 instead and not going wider than the 24.
When I do switch to mirrorless I probably will get a prime or two to start, to allow myself to learn mirrorless in a "familiar" way and reduce the variables a zoom lens provides.