A year wide open

Book Market – Thames Embankment 2007 20mm f1.8 lens

Do you have a plan or a vision about the sorts of pictures you want to take next year?

For a couple of years now I have the title for a potential talk in the back of my mind that was “A year at f1.4” but as the lenses I carry around are 18mm f2.0, 75mm f1.8, 135mm f1.4 and a 200mm f2.8 I thought I would need to revise the title a bit.

I have forced my self to leave auto-focus zoom lenses at home I could have covered all focal lengths of the prime lenses with the equivalent of a 15-35mm and a 28-200mm zoom. Both of the zoom lenses are about f4.0 so I am gaining three to four stops of blurry background.

Since taking this shot in London eight years ago I have lightened my camera bag considerably by moving to Fuji with an XT-1 and an XT-10. Both of these cameras have a APS-C size sensor which means that potential depth of field at full aperture is reduced because of the smaller sensor over the FF sensor used in 2007 on the Canon.

Tip – if you want less depth of field on APS-C size sensor camera consider faster maximum aperture lenses.

Warning – the faster the maximum aperture the heavier and more expensive the lens will be.

Tip – think about modern manual focus lenses such as Samyang or Rokinon.

(c) Andy Beel FRPS

http://www.andybeelfrps.co.uk