This podcast is for Vicki in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who is apparently determined to become my favorite podcast follower. Vicki wants to know, when should you use a long lens versus a wide lens for a landscape shot? It's a good question.
Because the conventional wisdom is pretty simple. Landscapes call for a wide lens. You want 24 millimeters, 20 millimeters, or even wider. But when Vicki was in New Zealand with me last year, we were photographing landscapes with 400 and even 600 millimeter lenses. So why are we doing that? Well, as I always say, there are no rules in photography, only guidelines.
A couple of years ago, while traveling through Kazakhstan, I had a 150 to 600 millimeter lens with me because I wanted to photograph gazelles. But I started noticing these incredible mountain ranges way off in the distance. And between me and those mountains, nothing. Most of the time it was just prairie or dirt. So I didn't need all that empty space. I wanted the mountains. That's when I realized how useful a long lens could be for landscapes.
Since then, I found the same thing in places like Vietnam, photographing those incredible terraced rice fields. From a distance, a long lens compresses all those layers together and suddenly the fields look like beautiful waves rolling across the landscape. So when should you use a long lens? When the interesting part of the landscape is far away.
Consider using a wide lens when you have the complete opposite. When you have good information at your feet. For instance, when I'm standing on tide pools on a beach and I want everything from my feet all the way out to the horizon, I'm going to go wide. I'm also going to reach from my wide when I have an incredible sky with huge clouds rolling right overhead. And the photograph is about what's happening right above me all the way down to the horizon.
So here's the simple way I think about it. If the interesting stuff is close, go wide. If it's far away, go long.
For me, I pretty much know which lens I need when I look at a scene because I've been doing this a long time. For most photographers with less experience, it's much harder for them to make that determination ahead of time. So here's one way you can begin to develop that instinct.
When you look at a photograph you really like, ask yourself, I wonder what focal length they were using. And to determine that, look at the way the scene is rendered. Are things spread out or are they compressed? Do elements in the scene seem pulled closer together? The more you pay attention to that, the better you'll understand what different focal lengths actually do.
Eventually, you'll stop asking, what's the right lens for a landscape? Instead, you'll start asking, what's interesting here and which lens will convey the scene the way I want it? And that's really the goal. Don't worry about following a formula. Look at the scene.
Figure out what interests you and choose a lens that helps you express that. That's it for today. I hope that was helpful, Vicki. And for the record, you are my favorite podcast follower.
And for everyone else, you can put Vicki in the second position and become my next favorite podcast follower if you send me a bunch of questions. Send it to zim@ boundlessphotosafari.com.
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