ecarlino Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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p.9 #6 · p.9 #6 · Now In Stock! FE 100mm f/2.8 GM STF and FE 85mm f/1.8 | |
chez wrote:
Ecarlino, really sorry you feel you wasted your time...and then wasted more by posting again. That example is not an environmental portrait as I don't feel like I'm emerged into the environment around the girl. It's an example where the longer focal lengths excel in portraits...classic portrait shot...but definitely not an intimate street photo.
Sure, you can use any lens to take environmental portraits, but with my experience if you are using longer focal lengths ( 100mm ) you limit your ability to get the shots. It is usually much easier to move closer to your subject than to back away. Many times you can't back away for physical reasons, and when you do sometimes you get distractions in the way like people or other elements entering your view. You also start to lose the intimacy of the environment the longer the focal length.
I just spent a half hour looking at the 2017 World Press photo contest winners...the press are good examples of photographers that shoot environmental photos as they try to tell a story of the subject within their environment.
There were about 50 winning photos and if you take out sports, I believe only 3 of the photos were shot with a focal length greater than 50mm, with the vast majority being between 20mm and 35mm. It's these wide focal lengths that allow you to get intimate with the subject and it's environment, to get images where the audience feels embedded within the photo.
I do take my 85 batis with me to get isolated photos of individuals, but if I want to focus on environmental portraits, it is my 35, 28 and now 25mm lenses that I will use.
Everybody is different and I'm sure there are people out there taking street photos with 500mm bazookas so whatever turns one's crank....Show more →
the point is you can characterize things any way you want, that's your choice, i'm certainly not going to take that away from you - but you have a tendency to make categorical statements reflecting your personal preferences - saying something like "35 and wider is in my wheelhouse for street and environmental" is different than "100 can't be used" which is how you started. my last example is certainly tighter and perhaps on the border w/ pure portrait, but over the paste 2 pages i found enough examples in the middle of doing everything i'm working on today that are better examples of 100 and longer with plenty of surroundings.
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