Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/06/10

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Leica Users digest V17 #160
From: "Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 17:58:41 +0100

Buzz Hausner <Buzz@marianmanor.org> wrote:

>I suggest that we think about ways to carry less equipment rather
than more?  Does anyone really think that she or he takes
better pictures because of carrying more equipment?  I propose that
packing any more than three lenses at a time will actually reduce your
photographic ability rather than increase it.

It depends what you mean by "photographic ability". Spending a lot of
time 'head-down' messing with caps, hoods and lenses is a dreadful
distraction from the business of seeing the potential image or
situation, but for the slide shooter who must crop with the camera,
it's part of life.

There are times when I look back nostalgically to the days when I had
just a single 50mm lens, but when I look at the slides from that
period, I'm often aware that the image was limited by lack of lens
speed, wide-angle coverage, or ability to cut out the surroundings.

If I know what I'll be photographing, then I keep the number of lenses
to a minimum (50mm and 135mm at the dog show next Sunday, 35mm only
when working at an exhibition on the following days). But on occasions
such as vacation when I'm uncertain what I'll be wanting to
photograph, yet determined that if I can see it I want to be able
photograph it, I carry five or even six lenses! (20/21, 28, 35, 'fast
50', & 85, and sometimes 135)

And they all get used. Last year in Venice the 20mm was the only lens
which could capture the view I wanted of St Marks Square, but once I
got close to St Marks itself, my eye was caught by the tiny frescoes
above each of the doorways, so it was 135mm time. Once inside the
building, I faced light conditions which needed the 50mm Noctilux time
(in the words of my local dealer - "It's seriously dark in those
places"), while the 85mm f2 was the only lens which would give me the
sort of images I wanted of the mosaics inside the domes. Four of the
six lenses had been used and it wasn't even lunchtime yet! Once I got
into the back streets that afternoon the 35mm came into its own, but
most canal scenes looked best at 28mm.

OK, so I'm deliberately playing "Devil's Advocate" by deliberately
selecting a day when I was able to exploit the qualities of all six
lenses. Most days the 135mm was left back in the hotel (the 20mm
Russar is so small and light that it's not worth leaving behind), but
the 28mm, 35mm and 50mm were widely used every day. I don't use the
85mm f2 very often, but the combination of speed and "reach"  is so
useful at times when it's needed that I don't grudge the extra weight
in my camera bag.

I'm going back to Venice this autumn, and have bought a 28-70mm
Vario-Elmar to use on my SL2. This will tackle most of my outdoor
subjects, but when I look through last year's slides and see the times
when I needed the wide angle of the 20mm, and the light-gathering
ability of a 'fast 50' or 85mm/f2, it seems likely that I'll take
these three along as well on a screw-mount body.

Regards,

Doug Richardson