I spent Saturday morning photographing the Edinburgh Farmers Market and the characters there. I used my f/2.8 17-35mm lens at the widest angle, which is roughly equivalent to 25mm. I had previously been using my telephoto lens at 200mm, so the change was very dramatic when I put the wide angle on. I found I had the lens right up close to people which if they noticed could be a bit intimidating, but most people simply didn't realise that they were in the photo at all! This made for great fun, and I could capture people and their strange expressions!!
In this series of photos the guy with the dog actually posed for me, so I just took a quick snap (metering was challenging in the bright sunshine), but I don't think anyone else really noticed what I was doing. Sometimes people tried to get out of my way, as if I was photographing something else, so I just smiled and kept on shooting generally. I found the technique of keeping the camera down and then bringing it up quickly to take a shot worked quite well.
I don't like the way the backgrounds are all in focus, pretty much regardless of what aperture I used. However, I tried to use this to my advantage in a few shots by filling the background with other people. And I attempted to avoid blown-out bright backgrounds where possible. I think flash would be useful in this situation but I'm not quite comfortable enough to do the Martin-Parr-style street photography yet!!
Most of the stall-holders I photographed seemed quite happy for me to do so, they probably assumed I was a tourist photographing their lovely wares. It was fun capturing the expressions of people, but generally I found using the wide-angle lens to be more challenging than the telephoto. It was hard to get close enough to people to fill the frame, and because of the optics of the lens in some cases people look a little distorted. However, being able to capture, for example, the produce on the table, the stallholder and a customer all in one photo is effective. I think with some more practice (like all photography hey??), using this lens could be even more fun than standing back with the telephoto.
I've put my best photos below, my favourite is the final one, with the elderly man trying to get out of my way and the little girl in the background. His expression is priceless :)
Thinking out loud...
ReplyDeleteI know for my 10-20mm I need to run really wide apertures to kick out the DoF. OR focus real close so that infinity focus is out of hyperfocal range. The widest aperture on the lens is f4. When focused at something 2m away with f4, I'm still covering everything between 1m and near infinity. Did you have any photos below f6.7? Did f2.8 kick out the DoF? Check out a 24mm f1.4 for up close portraiture.
You did pretty good controlling your highlights too given the difficult dappled shade, especially under the tents. You could bring a graduated neutral density filter into play, but it's difficult to use spontaneously.
You sure have guts pointing the camera at people you don't know. Maybe it's easier for women to take photos as all men with a big lens are instantly stereotyped into the "pervert" category.
Hey Hash, thanks for your thoughts... I hadn't tried focussing really close, that's a good idea. I didn't alter the aperture for this shoot, but I have noticed the same problem in the past that everything seems to be in focus no matter the aperture.
ReplyDeleteWon't be buying any more lenses any time soon, I've maxed out my purchasing on photography gear for a while I think!
I'm not sure if I really had guts - it was super busy and everyone was just looking at the produce, not at me!