Mike Johnston asked:
> As an aside, why do people like 20mm lenses so much?
> They're unnatural and hard to shoot with and difficult
> to see well with.
I suppose it's a matter of perspective <g>. I like the 20, and other
wides in that range, because it can allow one pick out and focus on a
subject in the foreground while keeping background details sharp. It
allows me to get close to the subject, and when one does that with a
wide angle lens, the subject seems to "pop out" a little more. This
allows me to tell a more complete story in one photo as the background
is more in focus. In some ways I use it like a tele lens in that I
can pick out a subject, but while working close to them. Sometimes
you want to feature one element in a scene, but you can't get back far
enough to do so. The 20mm - and wider lenses - allow this sort of
selectivity.
Of course the wider field of view is sometimes an important
consideration. When working with groups of children at play, for
example, I can get close to - and, if not careful, sometimes into -
the action. This allows better communication between me and the kids,
and pretty much keeps all the elements in the frame acceptably sharp.
It also allows for a more "stream of consciousness" form of shooting
since i don't worry much about focusing and, since the FOV is wide
enough, extraneous elements along the edges of the frame are often
easy to crop out, allowing me to concentrate on the action unfolding
before me a little better.
I don't find the somewhat distorted perspective a problem, and try to
use whatever distortion there is to enhance, rather than distract
from, the scene. Because of the great DOF at smaller apertures, the
lens allows for fast shooting with no real concern for focusing in
many situations, especially where there's a lot of action in the
scene.
The K20/4.0 that I'm using now is also a pretty compact lens compared
to some of the super wide-angle lenses, like the 15/3.5, which while
an exemplary optic is a big, honking lens and can sometimes get in the
way of fast shooting.
--
Shel Belinkoff
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"It matters little how much equipment we use; it
matters much that we be masters of all we do use." - Sam Abell
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