Learning to compose - lens advice

[Jeff S]

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Finally, if you REALLY want to learn composition, take a trip to an art gallery with old paintings, particularly the renaissance masters. Study how they used light, shadows, lines and diagonals, how everything has a meaning. I am sure this is what HCB did too.

 

He not only studied them, he did his own, and famously ended up devoting his time to drawings, as described here and in many other places.

 

I like to recommend this book on drawing; immensely useful for composition in a variety of media, including photography.

 

Jeff

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[luigi bertolotti]

Eh?

... fits perfectly in the "Spirit of the Old Man..."

[01af]

"The 50 mm lens is boring" is a common notion among non-photographers who like playing with cameras.

[lars_bergquist]

"The 50 mm lens is boring" is a common notion among non-photographers who like playing with cameras.

 

True. There are no boring lenses, only boring photographers.

 

The old man from the Kodachrome Age

[jaapv]

Actually the 50 is quite interesting, as it is equally possible to get a wideangle type of perspective as a tele effect, depending on the distance and angle of the subject.

[Messsucherkamera]

Lenses aren't intrinsically "boring." By the same token, a given lens isn't intrinsically interesting. Lenses are inert objects.

 

Boring or interesting is the result of what a person does with a given lens.

[gjames9142]

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I have never understood why people think a 50 mm lens is the closest to how humans see. What we actually see is a horopter -- a butterfly shape, not a rectangular frame -- and the eye is constantly scanning because it does not have inherent depth of field. Maybe a scanning camera like the Noblex comes closer to how we see. As for focal length, this is very much a personal thing. People are constantly invoking HCB, an undoubted master, but the photographers who have continued and expanded that tradition have tended to use wider and wider lenses, thus making the compositional "game" more complex and challenging. A wider angle will force you to get closer to your subject, which is not a bad thing. Other than that, you have to educate your eye. There is also the question of innate talent, which is not distributed evenly. It can be said that we are all photographers now, but that does not mean we are all good photographers.

[sblitz]

on the m9, and most leica rangefinders, i think the 50mm is the way to start to learn composition. the reason is simply that the framelines big enough to see whats in the photo yet far enough in from the edges of the viewfinder to really see what you aren't including. just moving the camera around changing what is and isn't inside the framelines, picking and choosing and otherwise altering the composition is a learning experience with value. if you go wider the framing experience gets closer to using an slr as the lens view and viewfinder merge to one. go longer, like the 90mm, there isn't a lot room inside the box. anyway, just an opinion on learning composition. as for which lens is interesting or not, that is up to you not the lens.

[jaapv]

Lenses aren't intrinsically "boring." By the same token, a given lens isn't intrinsically interesting. Lenses are inert objects.

 

Boring or interesting is the result of what a person does with a given lens.

Sure. I should have said the possibilities are interesting.

[agrokid]

The OP is worried about which focal length to start with. Here's something I found out for myself. I bought a Digilux-2 and it came with a zoom, of course. It was my first zoom. Over the next months I realised that practically all my shots were at 90mm (35mm equivalent), and a few at 28mm, seldom in between. I suppose it all depends on the sort of work you do. Portraits and churches for me. The point is that any modest zoom would help the OP discover his own preferences before spending a lot of money.

[rramesh]

The point is that any modest zoom would help the OP discover his own preferences before spending a lot of money.

When I was young, I used to see my father take pictures with his trusty camera with a 50mm lens. He was constantly on the move choosing the best location, framing and taking pictures.

 

Today you can see beginners with a DSLR, plant themselves in one location and get the zoom lenses do the work. With zoom lenses, you never bother to remember the focal length and hence requires unlearning when moving to a Leica.

 

If OP is worried about cost, suggest purchasing a modest 35mm or 50mm used CV or Zeiss. Not practice with a zoom lens.

[jaapv]

You'll never learn about perspective with a zoom lens. It is all about framing, nothing more.

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Jaap,

 

Unless you first stand where the picture is what you want it to be & then adjust the frame to include the composition you want.

 

There is nothing inherently advantageous about limiting yourself to composing w/ a lens that only has 1 angle of coverage. There is already the constraint of the 2 by 3 proportion of full frame.

 

The World people look @ & want to capture does not always exist within either or both of those partameters.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[jaapv]

A single focal length and especially a 50 forces you to zoom with your feet. Changing your position will change your perspective and angle. Standing in one place and framing through zooming will not do that.

[lars_bergquist]

Michael, a person who has learned composition will use a zoom lens like he would use an assortment of fixed-length lenses. That is true.

 

But he will never learn doing that if he starts out with zoom lenses. He will remain with his feet nailed to the same place, desperately twirling his zoom ring.

 

For it is with fixed length lenses that you learn that composition is not just a matter of cropping, but of perspective. Zoom or no zoom, it is with your feet that you control perspective.

 

The bipedal old man from the 5cm Age

[01af]

You'll never learn about perspective with a zoom lens. It is all about framing, nothing more.

 

To the contrary—with a zoom lens (or an assortment of prime lenses) you can learn about composition and perspective. With a single fixed-focal-length lens you cannot. This still does not mean that the understanding of perspective will come naturally to a beginner if only you provide him with a zoom lens. Usually he will just misuse the zoom for framing only, as a convenient replacement for moving around ... that much is true. To understand what a zoom lens (or a couple of prime lenses) really is about, most beginners will need a little help from a tutor.

 

But with a single prime lens, all you can do is to move your feet in order to get the framing you need, not the perspective you want. You are free to try various perspectives, and to choose the one you like best for a given subject, only when you have more than one focal length to choose from. You need to be able (and willing) to change both, position and focal length.

 

So—using one prime lens is a good thing to learn discipline and how to exploit the capabilities of that particular local length to the fullest. But it teaches nothing about how to use perspective as another composition tool because it will bluntly enforce always the same perspective.

[jaapv]

Perspective is determined by the geometrical relationship between camera and subject, not by the focal length of the lens.

[Peter H]

 

................

So—using one prime lens is a good thing to learn discipline and how to exploit the capabilities of that particular local length to the fullest. But it teaches nothing about how to use perspective as another composition tool because it will bluntly enforce always the same perspective.

 

No, that's what a zoom lens does. Its just like cropping in-camera, in that respect.

 

You can zoom from 18-300 but the perspective won't change. Move a few feet with a 50 and it will.

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[01af]

Perspective is determined by the geometrical relationship between camera and subject, not by the focal length of the lens.

 

As an isolated textbook wisdom, that's true. But have you ever actually used a camera? (I know you have so this was a rhetorical question—but one could think you haven't.) People with 50 mm lenses don't move their feet to change perspective; they move their feet to get the framing they want. In order to detach choice of framing from choice of perspective, you'll need more than one focal length.

 

So please stop this silly talk about learning how to deliberately use perspective with just one single focal length. Lars and you are saying image composition was not about framing but about perspective instead, and zoom lenses were only good for the former, and only prime lenses were good for the latter ... which all is blatantly wrong. Actually it's about framing and perspective, and how the two interact.

[jaapv]

So I am not people. First I choose the perspective, then I choose the framing....