Zooming With Your Feet Versus The Lens

18th Century re-enactor knitting in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia (click to enlarge)

On a daily basis, I  read many photography related blogs on the Internet.  One that I enjoy is Rob Sheppard's Blog, entitled Nature and Photography.  For you mirrorless camera fans, Rob also writes a blog about being a professional photographer using mirrorless cameras.  That blog is entitled, Mirrorless Nature.  It can be found here.  Rob is an accomplished professional photographer, teacher and author whom I highly respect.  I have followed his career for years.  I recommend you also read his blogs on a regular basis, especially if you like to use M4/3 format cameras.

The other day, I was reading his June 25, 2014 post, entitled Beyond Simply Zooming: A True Pro Secret, and brought back a lot of memories of my photography past using only prime lenses and "zooming" with my feet, rather than with a zoom lens.  Like Rob, I find many photographers who have never used anything but zoom lenses and don't know or have never thought about, how distance from your subject along with the focal length of your lens, affects the subject in relationship to its background.  If you understand that, good.  If you don't understand how these two things interact to change the look of your images, I suggest you read his blog post on the subject.  You can find it here.  Rob has some good illustrations to exactly explain his writing and on which I could not improve.  I think you will find this an important point in improving your photography.

Here is my technique when using a zoom lens to get the image I want:

First, I thoroughly examine the scene, move left and right, in and out, up and down, closely looking at the composition, the position of items in the scene in relation to the others, so there is separation between them.  I don't want a pole coming out of someone's head or two objects to look "connected" instead of space  between them to show them as distinct objects.

Then, I crop the scene in my mind to see how the background is rendered in relation to my main subject. Do I want it to be diminished or made more prominent, to be reduced in size or compressed, heightened or lowered?

How I have determined I want my subject to look will dictate where I need to stand (closer, farther, higher, lower, little to the left or right) so the composition is exactly what I want it to be.  Only then do I bring the camera to my eye and change the focal length on my zoom lens to only include in the image what I find necessary.  Not too much, not too little.

This can be done with a fixed focal length lens or a zoom, but with a single focal length lens, you are restricted to only a certain field of view, therefore, if you cannot exactly frame your image or stand exactly where you need to stand, you will have to crop, therefore losing some pixels and overall quality.

It is very easy to see something of interest, stand exactly where you are, zoom and push the shutter button.  But you really haven't "looked" at your composition.  Where you are standing may not put your background in the best relationship with your foreground.  It takes practice to really "see" depth in your composition, move and change focal lengths to get the best composition.  Many people just don't understand this or may be too lackadaisical to do it.

If you want another way to improve your photography, before you bring your camera to your eye, really look at all parts of what you intend to photograph, move around to get the best composition and juxtapositions of your subjects in the impending image, and only then execute.

Thanks for looking.

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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