Photography tips

Well, I finally caved in and purchased the 11-22mm Wide angle Lens. I have been contemplating getting it for a little while and finally took the plunge.

I wanted it in order to do a shoot that I have coming up in about 5 weeks time and just knew that I should spend a bit of time getting to know it and how to use it.

So, today I took just 1 camera and 1 lens (the 11-22 of course) and went out to start getting to know the lens.

I took a couple of shots, an 11mm and a 22mm shot of the same scene to get a bit of understanding of the 2 extremes offered.

Above, the 11mm shot, below the 22mm shot of the City from the park at Montefiorie Hill in North Adelaide.

 Ok, now I have those out of the way, so to speak, I'll move onto some other shots with this lens.

From the same park, there were a few other photo opportunities. This one of the statue of Colonel William Light pointing towards the city, with the sun directly behind him was taken at 17mm.

Now, my next shot was of one of the very colourful flower beds at the foot of the statue - and it was here that I really had a chance to understand what shooting wide is all about!  The flower bed is approx 3metres by 7metres in size, and to get this shot, I had to get way down low. The foreground flowers are less than 1/2metre away from me, and the top of the photo is approx 6metres away.

Now, as the angle is very wide I had to be very careful about looking at all edges of the shot before clicking the button. I first tried to frame it from standing up but managed to fill about 1/4 of the shot with my legs and feet and the top 1/5 with the houses in the background!

First lesson - shooting wide means you will need to get up very close

Before I left the park there was just one more subject to try and that is a fig tree with massive roots that spread out. I had to be very careful shooting this as the backgrounds from every angle were pretty horrid - houese, traffic lights and cars.

So, I selected a couple of different angles to try and the first one meant that I had to shoot at 19mm in order to avoid the background.

I got down very low - about 20cm off the ground and looking along one of the tree roots and up the trunk.

I walked around the tree looking for a spot where I could try an 11mm shot and did find one. I had to get in close and down low in order to take the shot. It is fairly well dominated once again by the roots that lead up to the trunk. I like to form and texture that the roots offer and I'll have to keep an eye out for another fig tree without any background clutter.

After leaving the park, we headed into he city and I took a few more photos. I just have 1 more to share. This one was taken thru a fence of a construction site. Look at the shadows and you can see that I was pointing towards the sun, but not directly at it. This picture, I did get a bit of lens flare in it. Now, If I had taken this shot with my 14-54mm lens I would not have had the flare.

So, day 1 with a new lens has proven to be interesting and I managed to learn a few valuable lessons from the outing.

1. Get in close to your subject so it fills the frame.
2. Be aware of the position of the sun to avoid lens flare.

Using a wide angle lens is going to take a lot more effort to master than a long telephoto lens and now I have a bit of learning over the next few weeks so I can get the most out of this lens.