Photography is boring…
Part of this has to be the fact that i am an “experimental photographer” as described previously.
Or maybe its because most fellow photographers i meet are often obsessed with camera brands, lenses, tripods and other such “gear”. I agree that equipment is necessary, often critical to achieve that signature look, however i disagree that it is essential to create fine images.
Or maybe its because i dont like journalistic styled candid photography – or i dont find it appealing to shoot images just for the sake of taking them. I often find myself skipping opportunities in shooting images of everyday things – like flowers, like landscapes, like travel spots, like animals in the zoo etc… unless i am doing something new with it.
Caveat: I do however do some documentary styled photography like my kids and their growth…but, i dont make gallery prints from this nor showcase them to strangers/ exhibitions/ contests. Read more
Lensbaby
Being an experimental photographer that i am, i recently got a Lensbaby 2.0 (i had previously tried the 3G and liked it). While exploring the lens was quite interesting, its an entirely different kind of lens compared to the SIMA SF lens (which i also have). The SIMA SF lens is a 100mm soft focus tele/macro lens. The images are soft all over, giving somewhat a diffused look. The Lensbaby on the other hand is a 50mm lens with an entirely different look – while the image itself is sharp, the edges of the image have a radial motion blur effect. I wonder if i can stack them?
Should you get them? I got bored of this already – i will however, keep the SIMA lens.
The perfect camera…
Well, the “human eye” for starters, is a pretty good one – it probably is the most perfect camera in a sense.
Scientifically speaking, creating one is not that difficult. The eye works somewhat like this:
- It has perfect focus all the time – The aperture and the focus are independent functions. Meaning, the aperture only serves to limit the light getting into your eye, but does not affect “focus”. Creating one mechanically is not difficult either – you will need a lens focused on the best hyperfocal distance (with a fixed aperture – say f22 or smaller) and a continously variable ND filter on the front of the lens – one that varies from zero to ND8 or higher. This can probably be an automated one – one that automatically varies the density based on giving you a perfect exposure for that fixed aperture.
- It has perfect white balance. Most modern profesional grade (highest end DSLRs) have pretty good AWBs. I think that should suffice.
- It has a fixed perspective and angle of appox. 50mm lens (for 35mm formats). Getting this is no big deal – this is often the cheapest lens to buy.
Well, that was it – now, will you buy it if one such is available? I would not! i am sure the maker will bankrupt pretty soon. Why?
I think, its no fun capturing exactly what your eye sees (Yes, even Journalists! – Dont they use telephoto, wide, bokeh?). We like our images to represent what our “mind” sees – not what our “eye” sees – it is therefore essential to use techniques and equipment that allows us to do this – hence the popularity of Infrared, Lensbaby, Special effects Filters, telephoto lenses, wide angle lenses, extender rings, macro lenses and Photoshop!
Disclaimer: This is not to say that i like photo journalists to manipulate their images – i think they should be allowed to do some basic changes, but not enough to destory the “fact” it was supposed to convey (Allen Deitrich’s example – chopping off someone’s legs is not destroying evidence or hiding fact – at least not in my books).
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By N2H
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