Wide

What lens to put on your camera?

Sometimes it is difficult to decide. But sometimes it’s easy.

Social events are easy. When shooting such events, where there are people socializing, eating, drinking, I recommend a wide angle lens between at least 24 and 35mm “35mm equivalent” (greater range is ok of course).

Meaning that if you have a full frame camera, use a lens in that range. If, as is more likely, you have a crop camera like a Nikon D5000 or Canon Digital Rebel, you use a lens 50-60% smaller to give the same effect, i.e. a lens in the 16-24 range. Like a 17-40.

At yesterday night’s event with Wendel Clark, ex Leafs captain (below) I used a 16-35 wide angle zoom on my 1.3 crop camera (I used the new Canon 1D Mk IV).

I do this a lot, and so can you.

Remember to get close to people.

Another option is to use not a zoom, but a wide angle prime lens. On my full frame camera I use a 35mm f/1.4 lens quite often for these events.

The pictures that the three above are part of will be on Oakville.com in the next few days.

0 thoughts on “Wide

  1. Most certainly – flash on all of them.

    The camera was set to manual exposure, two stops below ambient (the meter points at “-2”). Then the flash and E-TTL does the rest. I had the white balance set to “Auto” since I shoot RAW. The flash was pointed *behind* me (key point!). Finally, I used flash exposure compensation wherever required (depending on how dark and deep the background is in a shot: minus if it’s dark, plus if it’s white).

    Does that help?

  2. Nice shot of Wendel. I remember him as I used to go to a lot of the Kings games in the late 80’s and early 90’s (the Gretzky years). Toronto and LA never were the friendliest of games as I recall. πŸ™‚

  3. Mdee: I use the wide lens and very often use teh 16-35 on the full-frame 1Ds3. Not that funky as long as you avoid zooming all the way out with people at the edge of the frame.

    I like walls and ceilings. Failing those, the Fong Thing if there is SOME bounce surface, or the Honl bounce card if there is none. I seldom use the Sto-fens. Thanks for the Spectralight – I’d not seen that one and will check it out. Where do you buy them?

    • I live here in the Philippines and it’s available locally. Not sure though if it’s available in N America. If you would like one email me. It frees up the left hand but makes you look like your holding a futuristic ray gun πŸ™‚ Oh the spectralight will eliminate the shadows under the nose for a much more even lighting without the harsh flash.

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