Every time I’ve seen stats like that they show the vast majority of shots clustered at the edge of the zoom range. The conclusion is often a bit like yours that 24 and 70 primes would be useful or 28 and 105 or 70 and 200 depending on the lens being used.
Part of what I was trying to say above is that it’s clearly the other way around. You take 24 and 70mm shots because you have a 24-70 zoom. With a 50mm prime you would take 50mm shots In more circumstances than one might imagine this won’t give you a lesser portfolio at the end.
I’m not arguing that you should use primes as you have clearly explained why for your photography it makes no sense. For say a wedding photographer a 24mm and a 70mm is probably two good focal lengts so a two set zoom would be almost as useful simply because those two FL’s are userful in that scenario.
Most of my lenses are primes. But I also have zoom lenses and there are use cases for them escpecially if you are on a boat where you can not zoom by feet…
I don’t think I’ll ever buy a 50mm prime. It just looks too ‘normal’…
Funny, it’s the movement of children that got me back to photography. But, that was about point&shoot cameras that took their good time between button-press and shutter-open; by then, children had moved on and we had a nice picture of the floor… Bought the D50 to remedy that, and the rest is, well, inevitability…
The large peaks at the two ends of your histogram could also be interpreted as:
the 24 mm peak represents all the shots you took at 24 mm because it was what you wanted plus all the shots you would have preferred a shorter focal length.
the 70 mm peak represents all the shots you took at 7- mm because it was what you wanted plus all the shots you would have preferred a longer focal length.
Pretty much, for that part of the morning. I did go back to the truck and get my 70-300 for a few things I made a note of as I walked about with the 24-70; they’re not included in the histogram.
I don’t know if this is from being a writer or what, but I always found I produced my best writing when i could literally see the scene in my head and move through it.
But you can do it, because pre-visualization can be done while you’re standing at the scene. Also, I think digital photography has freed us from a lot of the classic Ansel Adams pre-visualization type of work. With black and white (and to a lesser extent color) film, once needed to determine a lot of the artistic decisions before clicking the shutter. When I was shooting b&w film, before I clicked the shutter I had already noted the contrast and development time that the film would need. With digital we don’t need to do that, we need only consider composition, depth of field, and capturing the full tonal range of the scene (via a single frame or bracketing). We can then make way more tonal adjustments in the digital darkroom.
More and more now, since I don’t have the time to spend hours randomly roaming around, I will use the satellite view in google maps, along wit h specific tags on photo sites, and a sun calculator to try and figure out what the scene will look like before I get there. I try to imagine the angle and quality of the light striking the object I want to photograph. I try to figure out a few frames before I ever get there. I guess this counts as pre-visualizatoin.
If you can quantify what you like about your own work, what you’re attracted to, then this kind of feedback loop can help you while you’re out shooting. I don’t know of anyone who has that high of a keeper rate. Mine has improved as I’ve improved my craft, but its still like 1/10 or 1/20 is a keeper.
You can exercise the compositional part of your brain, even if you don’t go out and shoot. Look at others’ work.
For a while I had cut shapes out of paper and would arrange them on the table. If I found something pleasing, i’d try to figure out why. Maybe you even take a photo of your arrangement.
I have this, too. The only time I can actually see things in my mind is when I’m just falling asleep. I read somewhere that visualization in dreams happens in a different part of the brain than ‘normal’, waking visualization.
Lucky you to have this ability. I love to read but wish I could do this.
I think that’s called “seeing”
Yes – regular review of my own output and that of others has helped in this regard.
I’ve read a book that discusses composition in this way – Picture This: How Pictures Work – it’s definitely useful to consider composition in simple ways like this.
What happens if you look at a scene and try to “see” it in black and white? Or just expose it differently high key, low key? Can you understand the effect of these parameters by looking at a scene with your eyes?
I can do it but it’s not stable, takes work and practice and I would hesitate to say that I “see” it. I guess I sort of do as I understand how it could look but my feeling it’s more like a memory. I cant freely focus on everything at once. If i do the whole scene the understanding would be blurry. Doing parts I can get more fidelity. Seems to map well to who we actually process visuals which is different from the complete freeze and evenness of a photograph.
I’m not sure I can even begin to work out how to do this but perhaps it’s something that comes with practice (something I usually don’t consistently have time for). I normally do these sorts of things by experimentation in post-processing.
Then I guess we do function differently. It was difficult from this discussion to understand what was semantics and what was actual difference. I have to emphasize though that for me it’s very fleeting and hard to “grip” but I can certainly imagine quite well how a scene would look like black and white.
Always very difficult to put into words what’s going on inside a person’s head. I have no idea if you see blue the same way I do, for example. I’m still not sure I’m able to explain it well.
Just curious: @elstoc, do you see the scenes vividly when you read? I do, even though (as I mentioned before) I also have problems with the ‘pre-visualise the final photograph’ advice.
No. I see no mental images. Perhaps occasionally vague impressions of an overall scene or parts of it if well described. But fleeting and vague as if viewed through a thick fog (for want of a better description). I have trouble calling such impressions “images” but I can’t find a better way to describe.
There’s a Vividness of Mental Imagery questionnaire that has a 1-5 scale from “like normal vision” to “no image”. I suppose I’m probably 4-5 on most questions.
I score higher on things I’ve photographed and heavily edited.
No. If you are making a photograph of a flower, and you know you want to increase the yellow saturation and decrease the green to feature the petals over the leaves, then you’ve pre-visualized.
If you merely see the flower, you’d say, “Oh a flower” and that would be the end of it.
Hardly. If you know the steps you need to take to make the photo into something that resprsents your feelings/sentiments, then you pre-visualize. Whether you see the actual image in your head or not doesn’t matter.
In more circumstances than one might imagine this won’t give you a lesser portfolio at the end.
Bought the D50 to remedy that, and the rest is, well, inevitability…