Comments on: Swiss woman in Mexico. Palenque, Mexico. 1982

By: My Art of Imperfection « Blog Archive « Single for a Reason®

My Art of Imperfection « Blog Archive « Single for a Reason® — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:07:03 +0000

[...] was inspired by a photo by Razzbuffnik and thought to myself, “Damnation, that is so damn good. I never photograph people. [...]

By: grasswire

grasswire — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:59:54 +0000

Jup, I agree – beginner’s choice it was. And that of a self-taught beginner. Learning very slowly. From own mistakes.

By: razzbuffnik

razzbuffnik — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:51:43 +0000

Pat

The yellow boots were nice. There was some nice to come out of the eighties. Glad you like the shot, it’s one of my favourites.

Grasswire

An 80-300 is just the sort of lens that a beginner would buy. I don’t mean that disrespectfully but people just starting off in photography love the idea of getting everything in one lens when in fact, when they learn a little more, they find out that it wasn’t such a good choice after all. Too slow, unsharp and low contrast due to all the elements and difficult to use at 300mm without a tripod if you want to avoid camera shake.

By: grasswire

grasswire — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:54:36 +0000

Great interlacement of gazes.

As for zooms, I guess I like them because my first lens was a 80-300 zoom and I kind of got fond of the “flexibility”. Plus it played on my shyness for approaching people and keenness on details.

It’s true I didn’t do any really serious work back then but zoomlaziness and fixed lens price factor just stuck with me.

By: Pat Coakley

Pat Coakley — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:24:48 +0000

Remind me to get out my yellow boots, will ya? I loveeed the 135 Nikon. I used it all throughout the seventies and eighties as well. This is a terrific shot for so many reasons.

By: razzbuffnik

razzbuffnik — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:33:25 +0000

Tony

You’re right, he does look like Eric Estrada. Well spotted.

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:35:24 +0000

Hey the bloke in the brown jacket looks like he should be on a motorbike working for the Californian Highway Patrol

By: razzbuffnik

razzbuffnik — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:38:31 +0000

Iheartfilm

The lack of depth of field is also an issue, particularly when used for close ups. When I used to use my old 135 f2.8 I took plenty of head shots with the eyes in focus but the nose out of focus.

I imagine the 135 f2 would be an annoying lens to use on a regular basis. You’d constantly be having to check the depth of field and that hardly makes for spontaneous photography.

My other favourite lens is my 10-20mm as it’s great for putting subjects into a context instead of isolating them with a blurry background. Horses for courses.

I tend to use either extreme in my photography and I’ve noticed that I take very few shots in the mid range focal lengths.

By: iheartfilm

iheartfilm — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 22:54:25 +0000

My buddy owns that 135/2, and, yes, it’s a beast.

Of course, one of the traps of getting a really fast lense, no matter the length, is that you feel compelled to shoot wide open. When I first got serious about photography, I made the mistake of shooting wide open a lot of the time. It wasn’t until I began shooting with more depth that my photography began to improve dramatically. It’s amazing how many shooters don’t realize that shooting wide open produces inherently softer photos.