Put Your Favorite Lens Aside and Change Your Habits for a Change
Today’s quick reader tip comes from Mike Seigafuse (mseigafuse in our forum). Check out his Flickr account here.
Sometimes we get in a habit and neglect to look at things differently. My tip is to try taking a photowalk with a different lens than you normally do. Most of us probably have a favorite or usual lens that we shoot with. If you do have a different lens try a walk and only take pictures with that lens. This will force you to look at things differently and perhaps make you look at totally different subjects. I took a walk this morning and used my 50mm prime attached to my 2x teleconverter. This is the closest setup I have to a macro/closeup lens and instead of looking at big sweeping landscapes I was looking at the shoots of plant coming up through the moss:
and the way the light reflected off of the rain drops:
Making yourself use a different lens can help you open your eyes to shots you may not have seen before.
Tags: Lens, Lenses
14 Responses to “Put Your Favorite Lens Aside and Change Your Habits for a Change” - Add Yours
April 28th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Good little read and made complete sense. Myself find going to my 50mm prime and 28-75mm too often; fits my comfort zone. I will definitely be using my 17-40mm and 100mm macro in the following days.
Regards,
April 28th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Great post and great advice. I’m planning to go walkabout with a 50mm and then a 10-22mm on a separate occasion!
April 28th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Any recommendations for a good nikon af teleconverter?
April 28th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
I like this advice. As I wrote on another post – I’ve decided not only to change a “lens” – I left my DSLR at home at took a high-end compact camera to my on my daily routines. It gives a whole another perspective on things really.
Here is something I took with my new compact camera (GX200 btw) – http://www.ilanbresler.com/2009/03/stop.html
April 28th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
“Ilan Says:
April 28th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
I like this advice. As I wrote on another post – I’ve decided not only to change a “lens” – I left my DSLR at home at took a high-end compact camera to my on my daily routines. It gives a whole another perspective on things really.
Here is something I took with my new compact camera (GX200 btw) – http://www.ilanbresler.com/2009/03/stop.html
Read more: http://digital-photography-school.com/put-your-favorite-lens-aside-and-change-your-habits-for-a-change#ixzz0DwtRzyHh&B”
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I totally agree with you on this Ilan; taking a serious compact camera for a spin. Not so long I was downtown eating some Thai and captured a Father and his baby(carried with those awesome fabric baby-holder, lol). Unfortunately I don’t have a link to post a preview but it was definitely worth bringing with me.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Definitely fun to do when you’re just doing a walk-a-bout photo shoot. Always have a camera with you – a Point and Shoot or a Cell phone camera so you can catch shots like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericsbinaryworld/3473763331/
April 29th, 2009 at 3:37 am
Great tip. I also love my 50mm, but tend to stray from it if I’m on a “walk” because it can be zoomy on my DSLR (1.5 crop factor, I’m essentially using a 75mm). But when I wander about at places I frequent, I’ll try to leave the other lenses at home next time. That will help me to avoid the desire to flip to my zoom lenses – only to never take them off again. Besides, the 50mm really is a better lens than my zoom.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:52 am
Ha ha, I only have one lens at the moment..
April 29th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Great tip, Mike! I’m always trying to find new angles/perspectives to shoot from, so I’ll definitely try this out!
April 30th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Nice idea. I once walked through a city with only my telephoto zoom and tried to find interesting compositions. I am sure I missed a lot of wide-angle shots, but I forced myself out of my comfort zone, challenged myself and came home with some interesting results I would have otherwise overlooked.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:15 am
I like the idea of a 1.4-2.8 sub 50mm for shooting in restaurants or such. It gives you the adaptability with the ISO, and short depth of field. I would love to have the Nikon 17-55 2.8, but it is very pricey. To me it would be the perfect lens for low light situations.
May 1st, 2009 at 9:51 am
Love it. I conveniently did this just last weekend – plonked the 50mm f/1.8 on the Nikon for the entire weekend including a little photowalk around the neighbourhood and random candid portraits of the family over the remainder of the weekend. Forces you to think a little more and work a little harder. Great little lens too.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Only been photographing since beginning of December, and I fell into this trap early on, but have recnetly taken to going out with the entire bag and switching lens during my walk as needed.
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
This is a good tip! I will remember to try this out sometime. In a way, I have grown accustomed to using my wide angle zoom most of the time. I should really experiement with my other lenses. Thanks for sharing.
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