Be Excellent To Each Other

I can hear your voice saying that.

Bit rough and ready this one, but you might find it useful...

Choosing the Right Focal Length

On the face of it the focal length might simply seem to be there to swing between ‘get everything in shot’ with a wide angle and ‘zoom in on that there Yorkshire lad and his kestrel’ with a telescopic. However, focal length has a far greater impact than simply fitting a subject within the camera frame.

We’ve already seen how a longer focal length can maximise bokeh behind and around a subject. The converse is true, the wider the focal length the greater the area around your subject that will be sharply in focus, even at lower than normal apertures..

But the difference in these focal lengths has another effect and that is the sense of depth between individual elements in the photographs. If you go wide you’ll notice that the space between objects ‘draws apart’, that is to say that in a photograph of a room, the chairs and the people will seem further apart – with plenty of space apparent to walk between them. Now, use a telescopic lens. Even if you step back to fit the same scene in, it’ll now seem as if the furniture and the people are packed more closely together into a dense throng. This is especially apparent with people behind one another. Compositions can easily become cluttered when choosing a long focal length, and the eye can become confused as the outlines of people – especially faces - jar against others.

This is why telescopic lenses are far more effective in shooting very simple scenes – solitary people and animals or objects with a smooth background. It’s also why street photography really demands a wide angle lens for the most immersive results. With a wider angle it really feels as if you are moving between the people themselves. It offers space to breath and places the subject more clearly in a cluttered environment. You also have to get closer and more personal. This increases the energy found in such a shot, making the invisible photographer themselves an element of the frisson. With a telescopic lens not only are images disappointing safe and isolated, but they acquire a voyeuristic sheen and appear less honest. Whilst this can be used effectively on occasion, it is telling that all the great street photographers such as Bresson, Davidson and Arbus never worked with a focal length above 50mm, with 24-35mm being the ideal.

However, for abstract compositions the telescopic lens can prove ideal. Paul Strand, Stieglitz and Walker Evans were great at this, using the girders and lines of New York’s emergent skyscrapers of the 1920-30’s to create black and white abstract compositions. Due to the extremely long focal length, different planes of focus – a window framing the shot, girders of a bridge, the windows of the houses behind the bridge – would all seem to be on the same level. Abstract art!

And so we see that focal length can really determine the unique character of a shot from emotion and energy through to classical abstract. Give it a try!

Took me a while to find this