Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Tuesday, October 17, 2000, at 10:55 PM, Douglas Herr wrote: > Andre, > > Yes we should all be so fortunate. My rule of thumb has always been "use the shortest lens you > need to get the picture". I usually start with the 560, and if I'm patient I'll switch to the > 400, or if the animal is big enoug the 250 will do. On rare occasions a 90mm lens has been > perfect. For this situation I'd guess that lenses between 90mm (full body) and 180 (head & > shoulders) would have worked well. This was condensed for me (when I was 11) by my father (that is, before yesterday when I learned that I was the son of Ted Grant), who said, "If you can't use a 35mm lens for it, you're not close enough." This, despite the fact that he toted around a (chrome, pre Dr. Blacktape) Autoreflex in Viet Nam. More balls than I have. And for the other cardinal rules of photography: (1) Don't cut off head, hands or feet (2) Focus on eyes (3) Don't use 1/500 or 1/1000, because they never work (4) Don't shoot into the sun (5) Hold your breath on 1/30 Ok, so (3) was a lie. The others are the 20% of the rules that filter out 80% of the bad pictures. Hmmm. Makes you wonder just how many man-years were blown in Photo I courses over the years. I am trying to put together a posthumous exhibition, but scanning 45,000 Kodachrome slides is a little bit daunting. And those were the less than 1/2 that made the "cut." (Do Kodachomes a Superfund site make?!)