Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/06/02

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Shooting With a Super Wide Angle Lens?
From: "firkin" <firkin@balhpl01.ncable.net.au>
Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2002 13:39:33 +1000
References: <MBBBJHIBKCKEAEOKKBPOEEJFDMAA.bdcolen@earthlink.net>

B. D. Colen writes: 

> IMHO, the only appropriate answer to this question is a question: 
> 
> Why did you buy this lens? 
> 
> B. D.

>  
> 
> I wonder if someone could provide me with some newbie pointers on 
> shooting with a super wide angle lens? 
> 
> I just acquired a Voigtlander 12 mm for my M6 from Dr. Yao and having 
> never used any lens wider than 28 mm I'm finding the perspective 
> provided through the supplied finder rather daunting. 
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> Greg 
> 

Well, Greg is probably like me: buy first and worry later ;-) I love 
superwides. They are especially useful to give certain images perspective. 
Portraits taken with a fisheye can look realistic and give the image and the 
sitter a perspective of the overall scene which no other lens can give. 
Architecture without a shift lens. Crowded streets and interiors, close ups 
with enormous DOF and playing around with the distortion to add some drama 
to an image are all ideas. I don't agree that you have to always "know" what 
a lens does before you get it. You may not like the results, but you can 
always say you have tried. Starting with a rangefinder ultrawide is a bit 
harder, I think, but you can always burn film as an alternative. Keep notes 
about what you were expecting adn compare with the results. My suggestion 
would be to start with portraits. Go to your local church and ask to 
photograph the minister/priest, take him up on a balcony, place him in the 
centre and include the whole interior as a backdrop have his head take up 
about 30% of the shorter frame, and play around with angles etc. You might 
like me suddenly not want to use a 90 for portraits again 

Alastair Firkin @ work ;-) 

http://www.afirkin.com
http://www.familyofman2.com 

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Replies: Reply from "Greg J. Lorenzo" <gregj.lorenzo@shaw.ca> (Re: [Leica] Re: Shooting With a Super Wide Angle Lens?)
In reply to: Message from "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net> (RE: [Leica] Shooting With a Super Wide Angle Lens?)