Quite often when you go out shooting with your camera you'll probably see a
scene that you think's interesting; frame it up a bit and then zoom around with
your zoom to try and get the composition that you want, but there is a much better
way of doing things than this. If you consider your zoom as a selection of
prime lenses, by prime lenses I mean lenses which can't zoom, they have fixed
focal lengths like 18, 40, 50, 90, 150 whatever it may be.
If you use a prime lens you can't zoom so you have to move yourself backwards
and forwards in order to frame the shot that you want. When you start controlling
your focal length you can control what the picture looks like, what's in it and
what isn't, but how do you know which focal length you're going to need for
which shot that you're going to take? I'm going to show you but to do so I'm
going to need a nice, friendly, helpful assistant called Natasha. Hello Nat!
This is Jane's daughter Natasha and she's kind of... well I guess I'm your evil
stepdad am I that bad? - Ahhh I can put up with you Mike
Ah she's sweet! Right Nat, could you come and
stand here for a moment, go that way a little bit, there we go - perfect.
supposing Natasha and I were standing in our own the garden or something rather
than in the street which is a little odd, I might just think 'Ah there's Nat, that would make
a nice picture' stand there and zoom around and just sort of zoom in and out
like that and take a picture and it's going to be okay, but I could get a
better result if I chose the focal length for the shot. I'm going to show
you a little exercise here which I would like you to repeat afterwards. What I'm
going to do is take the same picture of Natasha over and over again but at
different focal lengths, so you can see what happens to the environment around
her. Now this is going to involve a bit of lens changing and fiddling around so you
may have to bear with me for a minute. Nat can we go over here? The reason I've
chosen in the middle of a street is because you need somewhere which has got
sides that go off into the distance and that has an end behind. Now it's really
important when you compose your shot that you compose it exactly the same each time, so
I'm going to give Natasha probably about a hands width of sky above her head,
that's going to be the very top of the picture and the bottom of the picture is
going to be this seam at the top of her dress - that will be at the bottom of
the frame each time. So first off 10 millimeters, now I've got to get right into
your personal space here Nat to get the seam at the top of your dress and only a
handful of sky there it is - oop no - there it is - perfect. Now zoom the lens, I'm going to
double it to 20 millimeters and do the same thing. Now that's made Nat come closer
so I've got to move back a bit and that's only subtle - there it is.
All right now we're going to a longer lens, from 20 millimeters (camera straps drive me
me on the bend) let's go to 35 millimeters. So frame the
same shot, now I have to move back because the lens has got longer - again
handbreadth of sky, seam on the dress, excellent. Let's double that, let's go out
to 70 millimeters so again, she's really filling the frame now because it
zoomed on to her, so I move back a bit and very carefully line up - this is a
great exercise - oh you blinked, don't blink! Right, there we go.
Now we want to go out further. I'm gonna have to change the lens because the next
set of focal lengths go out a long way. We're going to go from 10 millimeters
right out of 500 that means I'm going to use a whopper of a lens. Even if you
don't have lenses this kind of focal length, please go and repeat this
exercise because it really will help you understand what on earth it is I'm
talking about. Now with the last one at 70 I'm to do the next one at 150, so I've
set the zoom on the lens I'm not going to zoom in and out I'm going to frame the
shot up with Natasha. Oh look that wasn't a bad guess, I'm actually going to go a little bit
closer, here we go... train your eye to look around the viewfinder to
line up these gaps like the the bottom of the dress and the hand breadth of sky.
Let's zoom then on out to 250. Again Natasha will have come closer in the
lens so I've got to move back to get the same shot. Here we go, line up the
elements, the gap at the top and the seam on the dress and then finally
we're going to go all the way out from 250 to 500 millimeters so I'm moving
back again. The environment behind Natasha is changing with each of these
shots and this one I promise, you would never know we were standing in a
street... but there's a lot of fiddling to get this right - still too close - there it is
Good stuff. Nat! Come and have a look
So beginning at 10 millimeters, here we go. Here you are at 10 millimeters. yeah you see how it's
pulled Natasha's face forward? But look I've got the bottom of the picture as
the seam of the dress, the top of the picture but a handbreadth of sky. As we
move on from 10 to 20, see how it's changed? Natasha has got a more normal
shape. Also look, the cars and the houses jump forward as we flick
between them. Moving on out from there I think we went to 50 which is a much more
normal looking Natasha. As we move on through - oop we want the
other camera as we're now out to 100 or so. You see how everything's starting to
take a step forward each time we extend the focal length
until now you don't know you're in a street, and we get to the very last shot
there's no hint of a house or anything. We've just got a clear grey background
which is actually the tarmac of the streets as it goes off up the hill in the
distance. This is all you need to do, it doesn't matter what you practice this
with. If you don't have a Natasha to take into the street just put your camera bag
on a table in the park or something like that and take the same shot over and
over again, changing the focal length and moving back so that you get the idea of
what's going on to the environment and then look at all
the pictures one after the other. This isn't just the realm of a digital SLR
you could do the same thing with a little compact camera anything that has
a zoom on it. If you're cycling along the sea wall
you might not want to carry a monster like that. Natasha would you mind? We're going
to do a very brief one. Here you go, over there a bit. If I set the zoom to its widest
take the same picture of Natasha getting right into her personal space,
good stuff Nat, and then zoom it to it's longest zoom, do the same thing move back.
You know if you're at a party and just got a little camera and you think 'Oh I'll take a
picture...' There we go, as you can see the two are very, very different. Don't just
think I'm going to go and try this in the morning. Once you start treating your
zoom lens as a series of prime lenses and moving yourself around not being
lazy, you'll really set loose the magic of your camera and your photography.
Don't leave it, get out there right this minute!
Go and try this.