Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/06/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]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 - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html