Less [equipment] = More Quality Images

[MagRat Garlic]

When I was a teenage boy, my greatest interest was in Mountain Hiking and Wild Camping. I read up on all of the latest lightweight kit and made sure that I had the best of the best in extreme conditions preparedness. Come time for us friends to pack for our big summer expedition, I'd proudly load all of this super lightweight kit into my rucksack. Then I'd be amazed to discover it weighed over 70 lbs !

These days I'm older and wiser. (Well, the first part is true.) My rucksack is never permitted to weigh more that 22 lbs for an extreme mountain hike lasting up to seven days.

The key lesson is not about knowing what you should pack. Rather, it's all about knowing what you can leave at home.

This also applies to photography. Sure, if I've got the luxury of always having my Land Rover to haul around my gear, then I will take everything I own. But if I'm going on foot, then Less is Always More. Two camera lenses and two camera bodies is my rule.

How to know what to take and what to leave home?

Well, if you ever go to university/college to study photography, then your first lesson will be your tutor saying you can only use one lens for the next week or fortnight. Why?

Our friend Matti has produced two excellent videos that'll explain this nicely:
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So, what does this mean once you've gained total familiarity (expertise) in what's possible with each of your lenses? It means that you'll have the skills to always come back with some good images, despite the fact that you may (occasionally) be handicapped by not having the precisely ideal lens with you. You'll know, for example, that you can take a super closeup Macro type photograph with a 300mm super telephoto lens and a single lightweight extension tube.

Also, moving your feet is crucial. I've often watched crowds of photographers walk up to the standard tourist vantage point. With a superior smile, they'll dig around in their large, heavy photographer's backpack, to select the "correct" lens for the subject. And they'll walk away with an image that's almost identical to the thousands of non-photograhers snapping away with their smartphones. Whereas, as Matti says, if you don't have the "correct" telephoto or wide angle, you'll have to move yourself around your subject to explore different viewpoints and different camera angles. You'll also be avoiding taking exactly the same technically perfect, yet ultimately boring, picture postcard image that everyone who came here before you has taken, and that everyone who comes after you will take.

Finally, as Matti and I both say every week, you'll miss more great pictures while you're changing lenses and thinking about "technical issues", rather than accepting you don't have any lens options, so you must engage your photographer's creativity to explore different viewpoints and angles with the lens you've got.

Back in the nineteenth century, many people were taught to be excellent skilled watercolour painters. Yet, surprisingly, very few of these highly skilled craftspeople ever produced anything that contributed to our artistic heritage. They're called craftsmen/women, not artists, because they were all about technique. If you always use the [technically] "right lens" for any given subject, then the constraints of what picture that lens will produce guarantees that your pictures will look the same as everyone else's. You'll just be following a rulebook, like those who religiously follow the so-called "rules" of composition. Whereas, as we know, breaking those rules is what allows a photographer to produce a truly inspiring and unique image.

Please, don't just use a lens to take the kind of image it says on the tin. Get out and force yourself to use each of your lenses in situations where you've been told it's "unsuitable". Only then will you really know what's possible -- and, in the back of your mind you'll have a secret weapon, because only you will know where to use that lens to get a different perspective -- something you can do with each and every one of your lenses.

Incidentally, this is why I don't own any so-called "standard" focal length lenses for any of my cameras. I lean towards super wide and super telephoto. A "standard" lens will produce a "standard" image.

Rick Bear