gdanmitchell
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 p.40 #16 · Fujifilm GFX100RF Discussion and Image Thread | |
quasitime wrote:
… and a lot of people out there are grappling with FOMO of an expensive camera and convincing themselves it is bad and not for them. It's a self-defense mechanism in an effort to fight GAS. You see this happen with so many new releases on this forum.
“
Weill, it could FOMO, but there are other sensible explanations, too. :-)
Another thing we commonly see (in this forum and others) is “irrational exuberance” about the latest meme product when it is announced and first shipped (and getting hyped by influencers) followed by the awareness that it isn’t the World’s Most Perfect Thing that will Change My Life Forever a bit later. We’re already starting to see a bit of that in this very forum!
Again, there are things that are impressive about this camera and there is a use case for it, but it is a pretty narrow one, FWIW.
johnvanr wrote:
've also recently gotten a bit more familiar with Saul Leiter's work. He often used longer lenses for his street work, something that intrigues me as I often find the usual 28mm too wide. This camera would not fit in that new focus.
Saul Leiter’s street photograph is beautiful and inventive. Anyone who doesn’t know his work and wants to (or already does) shoot street should be familiar with it.
Lots of things are stated as facts about photography gear which, if you look closely, aren’t facts at all. Wide angle lenses are the most important for landscape photography. Shoot portraits with a super-large aperture 85mm prime. Street photography is done with 35mm (or 28mm, or whatever) lenses.
You could shoot street with a wider lens and plenty of people have. But every focal length choice has its pluses and minuses. Wider can include more of the environment — either when that is the subject itself or when you want people to appear smaller and in the context of their surroundings, or if you feel that you want to photograph people at very short distances.
But if that’s the only lens you have, other subjects aren’t going work as well: that person across the street, a head and shoulders shot, a tighter framing of the subject that excludes more of the background environment.
It is a choice. Either way, you lose some possibilities.
A lot of photographers choose something a bit longer. 35mm is common, but that’s still a bit wide. 28mm isn’t exactly uncommon, but it is less popular. 50mm is less popular today. (That’s what HCB used.) But it does isolate subjects a bit better. 40mm is/was a somewhat common compromise between 35mm and 50mm. (I’m using 35mm film focal lengths here, to convert for. your favorite format.)
So, what do you do? There’s no one right answer to “what is the right focal length” for street. If you are going to stick to a single focal length, it is pretty important to spend some time figuring out what works best for you — by making a lot of photographs with different focal lengths and watching for a preference/trend to appear. The answer is partly what focal length you prefer, what you are willing to sacrifice, and what you can do if it isn’t quite right.
If you haven’t photographed enough to have a pretty clear experience-based idea of what works for you, it is probably a good idea to experiment with something inexpensive or, even better, with a small camera that lets you try different focal lengths… before you spend a ton of money on a hunch… unless, of course, you have so muchcash that $5k is nothing to you. 
(I’ll propose one rule: If you are on the fance between two focal lenghts, better to get the slightly wider one. You can crop, but you can’t make the image include more than it includes… Adobe trickery aside.)
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