M5Laser wrote:
[snip]
In addition to the demonstrable advantages (weight, brightness,
flare) and the less tangible effect of primes as a creative or
compositional stimulant (works for many, but not for everyone),
there's something else.
Character.
Primes are like a woodworker's knives, planes, and chisels. Zooms
are like power tools.
Each prime has a very subtle character, and they're simple enough
that with time and attention you can get to learn to know them
thoroughly.
When wide-open, my 50/1.4 lightly kisses the subject. It gives
delicate detail a translucent quality. The field of focus pops out
like child's laughter at a funeral, with the rest fading into
misty-milky distance. As I stop down, the subject emerges like the
main theme out of a symphony; the background and foreground
coalesce out of the softness, taking up secondary melodies and
harmonies. At f/11, the lens plays like the Deutsche Oper in the
middle of the Ride of the Valkyries -- the scene sings in a chorus
of detail, almost intense enough to make the eyes burst.
My Tokina 17 is a gypsy violinist. He may not have the richness of
tone of a Guarnieri or a Stradivarius, but he has the
improvisational virtuosity of a Paganini. Wide-open on film,
vignetting makes the corners start to darken into deeper shades,
and the caprices of the player stertching the geometry into
dreamlike forms, taking you into a world where men wore felt hats
and suspenders, and women had their bright eyes in white faces,
with the mouth a dark, sensual gash, where music was overlaid by
the hiss and crackle of gramophone noise. There is a foreground and
a background, although the point where the tripping melody of the
field of focus fades into the harmonies of the background cannot be
defined -- look at it one way, and it's all melody, look closely,
and you hear the harmony. Stop down, use it on digital, but keep
your eye on the ball, and the lens sees as through clear water:
colors and contrasts almost more intense than real: the pictures no
more natural and seemingly as far away... but this time, in space
rather than in time. And, of course, there are the little
off-sounds of red and green CA here and there.
Zooms? Like power drills. Sure, you'll be able to produce a picture
with them, just as well as with a prime, only more efficiently. But
they lack personality and character. They're efficient and boring,
turning you into a picture-taking machine instead of an artisan.
For sheer feel and romance, there's nothing like primes that you
keep, treasure, and learn to know and love.
Petteri
--
Portfolio: [ http://www.seittipaja.fi/index/ ]
Pontification: [ http://www.seittipaja.fi/ ]
Hey Tom! Give the guy a break! He likes his primesBingo. It's called "metaphor," "idiom," and "hyperbole," if IWow, now there's an example of poetic license
recall correctly from my high school creative writing classes.
Not for me. Mines not irrational, I'm doing something purposful as I try to bring something special into people's lives. I'm trying to create a window that people will want to stop and pause infront of as they go through their office, boxed in lives.Not reasonING. Reason, yes. Isn't there an irrational, romanticBad
example Petteri
primes.
aspect to photography for you? For me, there is. I think that for
most people, there is. Some camera makers would be long out of
business if there wasn't. That was what I was describing.
Well, I must say. You're fairytales were both appealing and artOh, I agree. I think there are very good reasons professionals tendThere's a time and point for all lenses, zoom or prime. I can't
understand why using both is such a big deal. Zoom people use
both, prime people shun zooms. What! Prime people were dropped on
their head as a child
know I bounced a few times
to prefer zooms and most prime-o-philes are either dedicated
amateurs or (wannabe or real) artists. The pro will lose income if
he loses or muffs a shot or shoot. The amateur or artist can shoot
whatever he likes, whenever he likes, however he likes. He can
permit himself the luxury of not getting the shot, for whatever
reason.
For me, that'll just mean a shot I didn't get. So what? There are
others that I got, and still others that I have yet to get. It's
the hits the count, not the misses. As a Finnish poet put it, "all
of us have produced excrement, but it's the masterpieces we'll be
remembered for."
Sometimes romantic fairytales make appealing reading... and atThe sigular and only reason to use a prime is because of image
quality or light speed/DOF. Everything else is nothing more then a
romantic fairytale.
best, they can be great art.
LOL!
So the man feels passionately about his tools and writes in poetic and pictorial language about them. In my view, a nice change of scenary in this forum - I enjoyed it!
You could very easily get lazy with the zoom and replace the few steps of your feet with a twist of your hand. Thing is, the perspective might have been better if you'd moved your feet instead. If you don't have the zoom option, you are forced to think of composition with your feet. Might not be the perfect perspective either, because what you really needed was a different focal length (maybe the zoom would have been better). I guess it could be seen as this: using your feet takes more time, effort and awareness. This could lead to better pictures - if timing isn't crucial. In photography where timing is crucial, zooms have it over the primes!
This is the best thing about digital photography - instant feedback, instant learning.
Well there are rules, but somtimes breaking them makes the best (most interesting) shots.
I rotated the camera around the lens axis in this picture, is this bad composition? I think it worked well! (shot with a Canon G1 and a shoe mounted 420EX bounced):
My experience has been the opposite. Without the "distraction" of the zoom ring, I find I can concentrate on my timing better.
I had passion for my old FDn 17/4 and it was one of my most used lenses. It seemed to be the lens I grabbed most often when I saw a shot developing in front of me...and I always had time to change lenses, decide on exposure, and focus.Not reasonING. Reason, yes. Isn't there an irrational, romanticBad
example Petteri
primes.
aspect to photography for you? For me, there is. I think that for
most people, there is. Some camera makers would be long out of
business if there wasn't. That was what I was describing.
--
--
True enough. I'm sure it's a matter of what you're used to. If primes did have an objective edge in timing, I'm sure PJ's wouldn't be bothering with all those expensive, heavy zooms. I was just pointing out that it ain't necessarily so (that zooms make for better timing than primes).Well, there's always that duct tape if you just can't use
willpower.
Yes, having a zoom ring often results in "information overload" (or
something like that). You can obviously be zooming to get better
composition and miss the shot. But the same thing can happen if
you change lenses, or even switch to a second body.
Yep, shooting digital is a lot like shooting slides, except you can check whether you got it right or not. I'm finally finding myself over the hump of the learning curve on this one, though. Mostly I've solved it with the "brute force" method of simply dialing in a half-stop to a stop of negative AEC if I'm in a high-contrast situation where I'm in a hurry so I can't tweak each shot separately. That'll virtually guarantee the highlights, and the image quality penalty for pulling up the detail is pretty minimal, if shooting at ISO100 or 200. If I have to shoot at higher ISO, I use the other brute force method of shooting more frames.
Have a look at how small the 300/4 is - and that's next to two
CONSUMER Zooms (28-135IS and 70-210USM) - couple that with that
it's sharper at F4 than even a 100-400L is at F5.6 PLUS you get
the extra stop AND if you add a 1.4X you get a 400 F5.6L on the
cheap (420 actually) - you can see why this lens is popular!
--
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