----- Original Message ----- From: "Malcolm Smith" Subject: Essential items for Pentax owners to have.
> As I have become more interested in creative photography, what items would > you say were essential. > > My use of a camera in the past has really been "statement" photography; > accident photos showing damage for company insurance, taking shots of cars > during rebuilding (in the hope that I will see how to put it back together > the right way). Not creative at all - does it show what has been intended, > that's all. I can't honestly say that any of the family pictures show a > great deal of skill, other than showing how quickly the children are > growing. > > Having established that I need a camera stand, macro lens, what other items > are useful? I have a couple of filters and a 75 - 150mm zoom and a 500mm > that I picked up at an auction for �40. That's it. > > I'd like to take a few frameable photos, as well as some suitable for > Christmas cards. I wouldn't go out and get a copy stand or macro lens based on the requirements for one job. I have 3 macro lenses, and they are my least utilized lenses. As an aside, an enlarger chassis makes a great copy stand. I built a nice stand from a Beseler enlarger that I wasn't using any more. I think that people see equipment as the Holy Grail of photography. I tend to be this way myself. The thought process seems to be that if one has this lens, or that camera, then great pictures will just happen. While a certain amount of equipment is a requirement, I really think we tend to go overboard. With the equipment list you mentioned, I would add a 50mm lens and something wider, probably a 28, because they are common, inexpensive, and fairly useful. I would also consider dumping the zoom, and trying to find a fixed lens in the 135mm range, an M series 150mm f/3.5 is a terrific lens if you can find one. Also, get a solid tripod and cable release if you haven't already. Going to a basic non-zoom lens based kit is a great way to learn how to see pictures. Zoom lenses don't demand the same discipline as prime lenses, and as a consequence, tend to make for a lazy approach to composition. A zoom in the hands of an experienced photographer can be a powerful tool, but in the hands of someone inexperienced, it can be a photographic disaster. More important than equipment is film and processing. The best way to learn the art of photography is to take pictures. Lots of pictures. This is the practical part of the process. The theoretical part is to look at pictures. Look at pictures done by other photographers. See what they are doing that works. Look at the composition of pictures that you think are good, and analyze why they are good. Apply what you learn here to your own work. Look critically at all your pictures. Too often, we dismiss the failures without looking to see why they are failures. This is one of the problems with digital cameras. I have read several posts where people shooting digital say that it is so wonderful and liberating to be able to nuke the pictures that don't work on the spot. Like as if you can actually see a picture on a 1 inch LCD. Like as if a bad picture has no value. The ones that don't work out will teach you far more than the ones that do work. We need to know what doesn't work, as well as what does. It is very easy to hit on a formulae that works: Find this type of subject, wait for this type of light, use this compositional strategy, and push the button. Eventually, you end up with an entire portfolio of boring shit. Conversely, if you save and analyze carefully, the pictures that don't work, you will learn why some things work, and others don't. Maybe that one that doesn't cut it would have been better if you had waited an hour for the sun to come around. Will you know that if you delete the image off your ram card thing or just toss the print because it doesn't catch your eye right out of the envelope? There are two ways to approach a potential photograph. One is to try to fit it into what you know works. This will usually give a nice photograph, but it is likely to look like every other photograph that you know works. The other way is to remove all the things that don't work, until all that is left is that which does work. This, to me is the better approach. It means that you are treating each subject, and each view as a unique opportunity rather than using a cookie cutter method. It means you will be cutting out all the extraneous stuff that isn't doing anything for the picture, and just leaving the subject. You may also find new things that work. William Robb - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
