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by Allan Weitz · Posted
I’ll never forget the first time I looked through the viewfinder of a camera fitted with a 20mm ultra-wide-angle lens. Everything looked amazing and I blew several rolls of film shooting everything I saw along the way. Prior to using this “exotic” lens, I had never shot with anything wider than the 50mm normal that came with my first 35mm camera.
The sobering part came when I developed the film and started eyeballing the results of my first outing. In a word, they were underwhelming, but I kept at it until I figured out how to use ultra-wide
by Allan Weitz · Posted
For many people, the word “landscape” typically conjures up images of snow-capped mountains, mighty rivers, and flower-covered meadows awash in the light of golden sunsets. But what if these photo utopias are beyond the bounds of a reasonable driving distance? What if your choices of places to photograph is limited to your immediate neighborhood or town? Are you skunked when it comes to landscape photography? The answer is, “No, not at all.”
Photographs © Allan Weitz 2021
Let’s start by defining our goal. A random Google check for a definition
by Allan Weitz · Posted
In this week’s edition of FAQ, the topic is a wide-angle lenses. When describing the focal lengths of lenses, there are three main groups: normal, wide-angle, and telephoto.
What is a wide-angle lens?
By way of comparison, normal lenses approximate the perspective and special relationships between elements within the viewing area the way our eyes do. In other words, normal lenses represent the world much like the way we see it.
Wide-angle lenses capture a wider view of the scene before the camera, but because they squeeze more of the scene
by Allan Weitz · Posted
Close-ups taken with wider-angle lenses also expose subtle detail, but by framing your subject in its surroundings, you also create a narrative to go along with the visual detail. “Normal” macro photographs expose detail, ultra-wide-angle close-ups tell stories.
Macro photography is fascinating in the way it enables us to focus on the kind of subtle details we seldom notice otherwise. Sometimes the most mundane subjects can become fascinating when viewed at life size or greater.
Photographs © Allan Weitz
by Todd Vorenkamp · Posted
The lighthouse may be history’s only example of a man-made structure erected in the middle of a scenic vista that did not cause public outcry and protest. You don’t have to be a lifelong sailor to appreciate the beauty of the world’s lighthouses. Even the lighthouses that fail to grace the pages of coffee-table books and the front of potato-chip bags are fantastic in their own ways. Mariner and landlubber alike often find their cameras pointing at these lantern-topped buildings, and releasing the shutter to yield stunning lighthouse
by Todd Vorenkamp · Posted
The job of a photographic lens is to capture light and bend it toward the film or digital sensor. The refraction of light exerts a variety of side effects on the image projected onto the film or digital sensor. Your understanding of how this bending can affect the image may factor into how you compose your images.
Anomalies and Lens Distortion
Glass, crystal, liquid, or plastic lenses made for photography are never “perfect”—just like the lenses in our own eyes. Photographic lenses often comprise multiple lens elements. Because of the way
by Todd Vorenkamp · Posted
Panoramic photography has never been easier than it is today, thanks to digital technology. In the days of film, your options for panoramic photos were the purchase of expensive, but very capable, panoramic cameras, stitching images together in a darkroom, or physically cutting and pasting prints together. Panoramic cameras, like the Linhof Technorama-series, Hasselblad XPan, Fujifilm GX617, or Horseman SW-series cameras, are beautiful machines and still incredibly viable tools of the trade if you want to take exquisite panoramic images with