City Escapes Nature Photography: City Escapes Nature Photography Newsletter

CITY ESCAPES

Nature Photography, LLC

Newsletter

February, 2013

Mark Your Calendars and Come See Us in March!

City Escapes Nature Photography will be exhibiting at Custer’s Spring Arts & Crafts Shows in Spokane and Pasco next month. From metalworks to gourmet food stuffs to candle making, these shows have something for everyone – now including some really cool critter photography! Be sure to set aside some time to come say hello -- and bring a friend!

Spokane Pasco

March 8-9-10, 2013 March 22-23-24, 2013

Spokane Fair & Expo Center TRAC Center

(404 N. Havana) (6600 Burden Blvd.)

Hours: Hours:

Fri: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fri: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Sat: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sat: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Sun: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sun: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Prime vs. Zoom Lenses

Similar to professionals in many other fields, photographers are prone to arguing passionately amongst themselves about various aspects of their trade. Film purists argue that digital will never be able to capture the depth and quality of their medium, while digital users argue that film has long since been surpassed. Canon users and Nikon users are sworn arch enemies. And don’t even get them started on whether Photoshop is a godsend or just makes photographers lazy.

This division of opinions reaches all the way to the most basic of photographic materials, including lens types. Forget brand competition; the debate reaches into much more fundamental aspects, including (but certainly not limited to) whether prime (fixed focal length) lenses or zoom lenses are better. The most truthful answer is, as it usually is, “it depends.” (Don’t you just hate ambiguity?)

First off, I should make it clear that to get accurate results, you should compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. In other words, ensure that any set of lenses you are looking at are within the same class (i.e., professional, hobbyist, etc.) Otherwise, you might just confuse yourself more. Broadly speaking, anything professional-grade will beat anything hobby-grade – and will come with a commensurate “professional” price tag. But even among a single class, there is a great deal of variation between the different types of zoom and prime lenses. To make a truly informed choice about which will suit your needs the best, you must pay attention to the specifics of the actual lenses you are considering. Having said that, here are some general rules about primes and zooms to get you started on your search.

Primes tend to be smaller and lighter than comparable zooms. Because they only need to deal with a single focal length, there is less glass and less material in the actual body of the lens. If weight is an issue, which it is on almost any long location shoot, the lighter weight might be a real advantage, especially if you tend to shoot at a single focal length. On the other hand, if you need multiple focal lengths, you would need to carry multiple prime lenses to accommodate them all. This would likely mean a greater total weight, and almost assuredly more bulk, than a single zoom that incorporates the range of focal lengths needed.

Prime lenses tend to be faster than zooms, both in terms of aperture and focusing. Their simpler construction allows many primes to open up to 1.8 and 1.4, while most zooms cannot get anywhere near that wide open, bottoming out in the 3.5 range (or higher). However, with the 1.8 and 1.4 apertures comes an absolutely razor-thin focal plane, making them a somewhat specialized range to work with; not useful to all photographers, despite the low aperture’s increased light sensitivity. Primes tend to focus faster than zooms as well, due to a more limited range.

As a HUGE generalization, among a class, primes tend to be cheaper than zooms. They are simpler in design, have fewer moving parts, and have less complicated components. Fewer materials are required for their construction. As with the weight issue, however, whether primes remain cheaper in the aggregate depends entirely upon how many –- and which -- focal lengths you need. While it is possible to buy three good primes for less money than a good zoom in comparable focal lengths, it is also possible to spend a significantly greater amount of money on those three primes. So, as usual, it depends.

It is “common wisdom” that primes are sharper than zoom lenses. While that “common wisdom” was accurate ten years ago, zoom technology has advanced so far in recent years that a number of zooms have equaled and even surpassed primes in sharpness. This is one area in which the particular lenses in question are of fundamental importance, as it is no longer possible to say with any certainty that one style is better than the other.

The single biggest advantage of zoom lenses, of course, is their ability to take the place of several different prime lenses. As mentioned earlier, this could come into play in weight and bulk issues, as well as price concerns. But it has its greatest effect during the act of making a photograph. The photographer is able to change focal lengths quickly, easily, and silently. As a nature photographer, this trait comes in very handy: animals appear quickly at unexpected distances, they don’t hold those adorable poses for long, and they certainly aren’t going to hang around waiting for me to change to the appropriate prime lens. (They’re very similar to small children in that regard – another subject that can make good use of zooms.) Also, because I am not changing lenses as frequently, there is less opportunity for that bane of all photographers – dust – to get to the camera’s sensor. Unless of course I have one of those zoom lenses that actually moves air in and out, and thus itself becomes a source of dust. Sigh. Like I said, it all depends.

While there are definitely purists on either side of the prime / zoom lens debate, most photographers that I know use a combination of the two to cover their range of photographic needs. Finding the best combination for you will require paying close attention to your shooting style, and let’s face it, your budget. Compromises will likely need to be made, and you might even find that making those compromises enriches your technique.

Here’s to always improving!

February’s Monthly Specials

Get 10% off of unframed, 8x12 prints of “Winter Wind -- Bison” and / or unframed, 8x18 prints of “Castle of Blue Fog -- Iceberg” when you order from our specials page. As with all of our unframed prints, these prints are eligible for our No Hassle Returns.

February’s Fun Facts

So you think congress is a bunch of baboons? Well, you’re right! Demonstrating that our species went a little name-crazy at one point, here are a few of the more interesting names for groups of individuals of the same species:

Apes → shrewdness	Boars → singular		Foxes → skulk, leash
Badgers → cete	Kittens → kindle		Doves → piteousness
Bears → sleuth	Cheetahs → coalition		Emus → mob
Hummingbirds → charm	Jellyfish → smack		Mole → labor
Rhinoceroses → crash	Tigers → ambush, streak		Trout → hoover
Turkeys → rafter	Woodpeckers → descent		Turtles → bale
Peafowl → ostentation, muster		Raven → unkindness, congress
Cockroaches → intrusion (fitting, isn’t it?)