I took the ultrawide and went for a stroll this weekend- it's a manual lens, so everything was done old-skool. One of the advantages of digital is the ability to immediately know if the exposure is too light or dark, and compensate for it right there. The metering had some trouble with this field of view- often I was shooting at exposures of -1 or even -2 to get the histogram where it should be.
It started off poorly when this fellow and I surprised each other:
[PLAIN]http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/7843/dsc6337.jpg
I was about 20 feet away and we watched each other for about 10 minutes, me snapping off frames the whole time. Why do I say 'poorly'? Here's the full frame:
[PLAIN]http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/7213/dsc63371.jpg
Clearly, ultrawides are not suited for animal photos. Even so, it was a useful exercise in manual photography and also learning that (some) wild animals will tolerate someone reasonably close. After I got over what the lens *couldn't* do (and a few mumbled oaths about Andre and his zoom lenses
, I was able to think about what the lens *could* do. Ultrawides exaggerate depth- long objects appear shortened and short objects appear lengthened. For example, here's two photos of trees- I'm looking up, the camera is nearly touching the trunk:
[PLAIN]http://img864.imageshack.us/img864/7960/dsc6257.jpg
[PLAIN]http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/5453/dsc6243q.jpg
The trees are quite normal- it's the depth perspective that has altered, making them appear short and stumpy. You can also see my hand and the lens cap in the frame- I'm trying to block the sun glare from creating those blue blobs. Alternatively, here's a shot through a hollow trunk, the length of which was maybe 6 feet:
[PLAIN]http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/4237/dsc6355j.jpg
I'm closer than 1 foot from the trunk, and the warped perspective makes the trunk appear as a long tunnel. The key to using a lens like this is to get *close* and *low*:
[PLAIN]http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/7758/dsc6353.jpg
[PLAIN]http://img863.imageshack.us/img863/4248/dsc6268.jpg
[PLAIN]http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/7194/dsc6273.jpg
[PLAIN]http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/507/dsc6274x.jpg
[PLAIN]http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/1308/dsc6367.jpg
[PLAIN]http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/5072/dsc6371f.jpg
Those last two images were taken inside some sort of lean-to structure (there's nature classes that make these things all year long). There was barely enough room for me to crouch down and crawl in- if the ground wasn't so muddy, I would have laid down and shot directly up. I wasn't even looking through the viewfinder- not enough room. As it was, I came home all dirty and muddy. But the images make the interior seem spacious.
Two things to notice: the horizon tends to seek the middle of the frame, and when lines come in from the corners, the image appears 'better'.
[PLAIN]http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4305/dsc6377n.jpg
It's really hard to get the horizon to move if it's anywhere near the central third- the image appears unbalanced otherwise. Using an ultrawide for landscapes, it's critical that some object be in the foreground to anchor the image:
[PLAIN]http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1439/dsc6365x.jpg
Otherwise, the image is really empty becasue there's nothing to focus on:
[PLAIN]http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/3020/dsc6259j.jpg
but it's also good for sweeping skies. Here, it's really important to keep the horizon in the frame:
[PLAIN]http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/7716/dsc6264.jpg
The objects basically serve as a 'scale bar'. If you cover up the ground, it's impossible to tell how much area the sky is covering: the image could have been taken with *any* focal length lens- which defeats the purpose of having an ultrawide! Another bonus of this lens, the lens tends to make the image more blue at the corners, so sky and water appear extra-saturated if they run along the edges of the frame.
It's been raining for 2 weeks- if the weather gets better for next weekend, I'll probably do the same stroll except with the 400mm.
