The "Zoom Conundrum"

Personal Shooting… 
and the “Zoom Conundrum”

As most of you know I am a big believer in shooting work for your portfolio all the damn time. 

I have been so buried underneath other projects, Project 52, and my consulting work that I have let my personal shooting lapse a bit.

I had a moment of clarity a few weeks ago while on the trip to Utah.

I simply do not shoot enough. That trip reminded me of what it was like to live with a camera in my hand, instead of hands on a keyboard.

And I vowed to change that up by any means necessary.

That doesn’t mean quitting the book or stop consulting, P52, or other endeavors that I am working on. Quite the opposite. It means I have to work smarter and more focused so that it gives me time to do the creative work I must do.

So I have been finding reasons to shoot, and ways to do it.

Last weekend I took off on a whim and headed to the deserts of Southern California. Brawley was going to be home base for a few days while I took a few excursions into the Anza Borrego Desert.

Yeah… I do love that place. 

This time I drove a car instead of riding my motorcycle. I wanted to have some options that the bike wouldn’t offer me. And I wanted a place to get out of the sun and write down ideas when they came to me instead of waiting till I got back to the motel.

Ideas in your head are like water drops in a sieve. We start out with a bucket full but by the time evening rolls around, we can only remember a couple.

If that.

And I believe ideas are the currency of creativity.

During my clarity moment in the wildlands of Utah, I also decided I needed to get a zoom lens for my Nikon. I do not use zooms on that camera as I much prefer the smaller and lighter primes from an earlier era that mount just fine on my Df.

So I bought a 24-120 to closely match my favorite zoom on the Canon kit, the 24-105. 

These lenses get me to the sweet spot of where I like to be.

24MM is wide enough for me. In fact, I am very comfortable with a 28MM as my widest. Any wider and I think the images begin to look more cartoonish than reality-based. (Personal opinion for MY work – not yours.)

And longer than 120MM is not needed for most of what I shoot. Although I did spend some quality time with my 200MM in Bryce, I usually do not grab anything longer than the Canon 135MM f2.

Again it is that vision thing.

So – I head to California with the zoom attached to the Df sitting on my passenger seat. And at the first opportunity to shoot, I took it off and put the 50MM back on.

And it stayed on for the rest of the trip. 

Yep… three days and one lens; the 50MM 1.8.

It seemed perfect for what I was doing. It wasn’t wide and expansive like the 24MM/28MM and it wasn’t bringing everything closer like the 85MM or 120MM would do.

I was in farming land, desert land, diversely constructed land. And it seemed right for everything I was doing.

This is the second shoot where I have gravitated to a single, probably most often used lens, for an extended period of time.

My vision seems to be changing. What and how I frame seems to be evolving to a different place.

One I am not as familiar with.

The 50MM…???

I have always either shot wide or long. For a lot of my career (the fashion stuff) I shot very long. A 200MM or 300MM was the lens of the day. And the Nikkor 180MM f2.8 rarely left the front of my camera for everything from headshots to full length. Even establishing shots were tightly framed by that 180MM of sweetness sitting up proudly on the front of my F2’s and F3’s.

But never would I have chosen a 50MM for much of anything. For decades.

And now I turn to it on an extended three days and do not take it off.

Perhaps the Keto thing is messing with my mind? 

(Note to self… you may need a burger and fries to stay sane… yeah, that’s my story!!!)

Have you ever found yourself changing your viewpoint with lenses and start to use just one or two focal lengths for most of your work?

The comfort of viewpoint and accessibility the lens seems to offer my subjects is very intriguing to me.

And I wonder if I am seeing the lens in a new light, or that the lens is leading me toward a new way of seeing?

I am not sure I care if either is correct. It is very interesting and I am very much liking the work I am getting from the combo of Nikon Df and 50MM lens.

These shots are from a two-day excursion to Anza Borrego Desert, and Brawley, CA, where I spent a couple of nights. 

All of the images were shot on a Nikon Df and 50MM f1.8 lens (which pretty much stayed on the camera the whole time.)

Interesting.