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 Using lenses and apertures creatively
Of course the increasing excellence of the zoom optic has brushed away many of these posers for 35mm buffs. Today you can buy a couple of zooms to cover a huge range of photographic situations, and there's even the superzoom that incorporates possibly all the focal lengths you'll need 95% of the time. Whether or not this is too much of an optical compromise is a different matter. So the world is your oyster if you use 35mm. Larger formats such as 6x4.5, 6x6 and 6x7cm do feature a small sprinkling of zoom lens options, but high cost and bulk often outweigh their practicality.
Whatever lens choices you make, they must be utilised
with flair - a bagful of top-notch optics is no substitute for a keen
eye and a creative mind. Think of how the different characteristics of
each lens type can be harnessed to improve your pictures. Yes, a wideangle
provides a broader view of a scene, but what else does it offer? Plenty
- for any given aperture the zone of focus is deeper with a wide lens,
so you can ensure everything is pin-sharp from front to back of the frame.
Additionally a wide lens tends to space out objects through the frame,
so you can separate things that appear close together with the unaided
eye. Finally because of the distorting effect of the short focal length,
you can use this lens type to add emphasis to something in the foreground,
while simultaneously diminishing distant elements.
A long telephoto offers equally dramatic visual effects. Apart from giving a magnified view of a subject compared to a standard lens, the tele appears to squeeze objects in space or pile them up on top of each other. That's great if you want to make things look crammed together. Another significant merit is offered by using a telephoto at a wide aperture, as depth-of-field is limited, and this allows you to emphasise your main subject while other parts of the shot are defocused and less prominent. A long lens also allows you to compose graphically in the viewfinder, as there are often fewer elements to deal with.
To show that all this optical theory isn't hokum, here's some shots of mine which I hope illustrate some of the points clearly. I'm always on the lookout for architectural images, and one day in London I spotted a decorative element I needed to capture for a book project. The trouble was reaching and framing it, as it was above a shop and there was lots of bustle as usual at street level. My solution was to reach for the magnifying power of a long telephoto, and focus in on the element I wanted along with a window for scale. Making sure I was directly opposite the subject, and not at even a slight angle, I composed the subject vertically and formally. I'd have struggled to frame the subject successfully with a standard lens, as the much closer viewpoint and steeper shooting angle would have given strongly converging verticals.
On one occasion I was taking some pictures in Grantham, Lincs for a travel guide. The statue of Isaac Newton was on my shoot list, and I've included my first impression of the scene as viewed from across the busy street. So how to improve the picture? My first move was to line up the statue and the grand buildings behind into a more pleasing arrangement. A mid-telephoto lens captured this scene - note how foreground and background are still sharp, thanks to a small aperture of f/22 set on the lens. Then I increased the telephoto setting to maximum and opened up the aperture to f/5.6, with the result that the statue now dominates and stands sharp against a softer but still recognisable backdrop. A few hours later I strolled past the same scene
and, with the light considerably changed, attempted a further option.
I moved in close to the statue, and shot it with a wideangle lens, including
the foreground bollards that were previously in shadow. Compare this shot
with the full telephoto image and you can see how different lenses can
be used, along with viewpoints and aperture variables, to ring the changes
to your images.
Another method of using differential focus with a telephoto is to use closer defocused elements to lead the eye to the main subject. For the close-up of the building I selected a wide aperture of f/3.5, and shot through closer trees to frame the details I wanted sharply portrayed. Don't forget that altering focal length allows you to crop an image exactly the way you want it. This newly built power station had some attractive sculptural qualities, but a broader view included too much of the roadside and nearby foliage. Zooming in to a tighter composition increased the graphic aspect of the shot, and allowed the modern shapes to be shown minus the adjacent unwanted elements.
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