Do you ever use the wide-angle lens as a crutch when you are doing landscapes?
I had a creative block today.
I grabbed the 20mm and did the classic close foreground/wide background landscapes today. They look dramatic but not creative.
Do you sometimes depend on the unique perspective of a lens to fill in creative voids?
Yep, and the sad thing is, it actually works.
Just look at any tourist brochure with an ultra-wide shot of the Caribbean including a fishing boat, sunbathers, parasailers, a cruise ship and several sovereign nations — the angle of view becomes the content.
And you can’t stop lookin’ at it, can ya?
Yeah, sometimes. I feel the same way – dramatic, but not *creative* (usually).
Have you checked out Tim Fitzgerald’s book on landscape photography, sold through the Audubon Society? It’s great and has some really cool tips to beef up your creativity on landscapes.
Without the wide view of a super wide angle lens, you cannot capture the grand view that captured you eye in the first place
The 20mm is my “normal” lens for my F4.
I use the 12mm setting on you super wide zoom when shooting with my DSLR.
It isn’t a crutch, it is a tool. The images produced using a wide angle lens either work or not. It is up to your creativity to compose, using the full frame and filling it with the image in your mind’s eye.
I would think with the San Fransico Mountains, Havasupai and the Grand Canyon so near, you would be using your 20mm like a wildman
I have used wide-angle lens as a crutch before. Yes, landscapes would really look very dramatic. But as I viewed my photos for several times, I realized that photos should have a combination of the two, dramatic yet creative. Until now, I am still on the process of experimenting with my camera on how to find the perfect shot that I want.