I’m not ‘testing’ the patience of the good people of Bath, lord knows they’ve been tested to the brink every time I point my camera at them, the testing here is the opportunity to take my new Leica Summicron 28mm out onto the street. When I say opportunity it really is grab it whilst you can at the moment, there’s a word for the weather here and politeness prevents me from typing it. I’ve lived in England for getting on towards six decades (wow!) and therefore you’d think that I’d be used to it, but it seems to be getting wetter, if that’s even possible. Feels as though it’s been raining for the last three months, it hasn’t, but every time I get a chance to shoot some Street Photography it’s bucketing down. I received my new lens on Monday and whatever happened I was going into Bath the next day to try it out. I did, it was foggy, bloody freezing. I’m happy to report that it wasn’t raining and so I headed into the city for a very quick test, here are my initial thoughts:
Traditionally when my wife and I go into Bath I always grab a shot of us in the car park lift (elevator). No particular reason, I just do. So fittingly here’s the first photo with the new 28mm lens and it demonstrates how I need to think a little differently with this lens:
I’m so accustomed to my trusty 35mm that I didn’t really make allowances. It wasn’t going to be that much wider was it? That 7mm difference makes a real difference, it’s a lot wider. I’m not using the LCD Display here by the way, I have never used that, this is just how I prefocus and click, it’s not necessary to bring it to my eye although from a framing point I probably should have done in this instance. Sam was looking at her hair in the mirror and I thought I’d grab a quick shot of myself. I’m not some kind of a narcissist, I also wanted to see how the lens reacted to the various lines that I knew existed in this lift, if there would be too much distortion.. The 35mm would have produced a much tighter frame. One thing is clear, I’ll be needing to get much closer with this lens. Let’s hope nobody notices:
Oops…well, the first thing you’ll notice is that the sun eventually did come out, even so this lady doesn’t look very happy about it! Incidentally I cropped this image, too many distractions which is another thing for me to consider with the wider angle. There’s going to be a lot more included within the frame. For the hour previously it was the fog that was my main issue, although once that began to clear it did lend itself towards some soft diffused light:
With my 35mm I’ve always used the Hyperfocal method for focussing. I tried explaining this a few years ago, not very well it has to be said, you can read it here. I tried hyperfocal with the 28mm to begin with and then decided that actually with all the Depth of Field provided by this wider angle lens I might as well use Zone Focussing. There is a difference. So the aperture ring was set at f/11, I set the focus dial to 6 feet. This meant that everything from 3.5 feet to 30 feet would be more or less in focus. With the same settings on the 35mm it would read 4 feet to 12 feet. Here’s a photo taken with my phone because I don’t want to get into all this hyperfocal and zone focussing mess of an explanation again :
Either way, it’s a brilliant way of shooting Street. Faster than any autofocus, it’s already in focus, all you need to do is press the shutter release… providing that you’ve manually set your exposure. Let’s leave that there, it’s one of those simple things in life that is really difficult to put into words, as was painfully obvious from my attempt in that blog post. Actually I stopped writing there momentarily and had a quick look on youtube, man what a mess they make of it. Pleasing that I’m not alone, even the ‘great’ Eric Kim has two attempts and fails miserably on both. I didn’t understand what he was blabbing on about and I already have a grasp of it. There’s only one video I could find that accurately and simply explains. Look up '‘David Coleman, Zone Focussing” if you’re interested. Right, back to this short blog post:
What I can tell you is that there has to be some changes in my modus operandi. When I’’m shooting Street it’s from the chest or sometimes slightly lower and generally I tilt the camera up a little. Trying that with a 28mm produces a different frame than I’m used to. Either a lot of unnecessary empty sky, or buildings in Bath that I didn’t know existed until now…the buildings not the sky, obviously I know about the sky, it’s constantly grey and water comes from it.
Alright, it’s sunny again in that shot. Not too much distortion there either I’m pleased to see which is a common complaint with wide angle lenses. Now, the next time I’m out all I need to concern myself with is getting back to the content, the form is all taken care of after this short test. Talking of content, there’s not much to report on this outing. I’m not entirely sure I was looking for it, too busy with how I intend to operate and frame with this lens in the future. I suspect that if anything had happened of interest I’d have missed it. Essentially I got a feel for the 28mm. I just clicked at anything that I thought would aid that process. I wanted to be close up, I wanted to also shoot a scene.
It’s a learning process. I now know that for that last shot to work in any way I’d need to be a lot closer to this guy in the foreground. What I am looking forward to is getting in nice and tight to my foreground subject and allowing that wide frame to fill in the middle and background. As we finish here’s another example where getting out of my 35mm mindset and moving even closer would have made for a reasonable shot. I need some time to experiment and explore more deeply the potential of this lens.
So far I like this 28mm lens a lot and it’ll be a permanently attached to my camera for everyday use. I feel as though I’ve made the right choice for how I want to shoot Street Photography in the future. My usual blogs and trips should be resuming once the weather cheers up. Il’ll be able to monitor any progress with the 28mm at the same time using this short initial test and blog post as a reference. As a side note my favourite image from this post is the AllSaints Ladies. I know not much is happening, nothing dramatic, no light and shadow play…sometimes that’s exactly what appeals to me, people simply going about their daily lives.
As always my sincere thanks go to anyone taking the time to read this blog.
All images can be opened by clicking on the thumbnails and are taken using a Leica M with Summicron 28mm Lens fitted.
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