A Scenic World

“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.” ~Arthur Miller

I shoot almost completely with prime lenses. That means there’s no zoom; if you want the object to be bigger in your viewfinder, you either move closer to the object or you move the object closer to you. Or as someone else once said, you have to zoom with your feet.

I went from having a superzoom bridge camera to another bridge camera that didn’t have quite as much zoom to an SLR with one prime lens. When I went to Spain and Morocco, I owned three prime lenses; I took them all. I spent three weeks in two of the most picturesque countries in the world and was only able to shoot at 21mm, 43mm, or 70mm. And I’m fairly confident those are some of the best pictures I’ve taken in my life.

I own more lenses now, but there’s only so much room in my camera bag – I can’t bring a 14mm, a 21mm, a 35mm, a 50mm, a 70mm, a 100mm, 135mm, and 200mm to every shoot. Every time I step outside to shoot, I have to make a decision as to which lens(es) I’ll be bringing. When I go biking, I generally take just the camera with the DA 35 Macro. When I go walking, I always take the D-FA 100mm Macro and anywhere from one to four other lenses. Which lenses I choose will determine what I shoot that day.

One thing I like about my lenses is that I feel like I know them (or most of them, anyway). If I have the 31mm, I switch my “view,” the one I have in my head, to “31.” Sometimes a shot comes into my sights that obviously requires another lens; with any luck, I have that lens on me and can switch. If not…well, if it’s the kind of shot that can be taken on a different day, I take note of the time and place and come back another day. And if it’s not that kind of shot, I keep looking for one I can take with the equipment I have.

The things that keep me from getting great shots is rarely the lack of the right lens – it’s the difficulty of getting out of the chair and out the door to shoot. Very few of us capitalize on the time we have available to us. Nothing improved my photography more than first cancelling cable television and then getting rid of my tv altogether. I’m no Luddite and I still watch shows I like via the internet, but now I don’t find myself flipping though channels, trying to find something to fill the time. Instead, I find myself outside with my camera during prime time.

Life is short. All we can do is make the most of it, and if we only have one lens, then we’d better make damn sure we’re making the most of that lens.

And it all starts by picking up the camera and walking out the door. Even if you only have ten minutes – even if you only get one good shot while you’re out with your one lens, that’s one shot more than you would have had otherwise. And in ten years’ time, that might be the shot that brings back fond memories of your life now or that hangs in your foyer or that brightens someone else’s day.

So have the right regrets! And I’m going to get off the computer now ;)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.