Paul Stregevsky commented;
> Glenn wrote: "I can't put together *a* minimal kit, because I do too many
> types of shooting, of too many kinds of subjects, in too many
> different environments and conditions."
>
> Didn't Henri Cartier-Bresson make do with a Leica and a 50? (Not that I
> could.)
Aha! A good point, and one in light of which I'll need to
re-examine what I've said so far! After all, who am I to claim
to know more about the art than the likes of Henri
Cartier-Bresson? (And no, in case tone of voice doesn't come
through, that is most decidedly _not_ sarcasm.) But...
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not as familiar with
Cartier-Bresson's work as I should be, but I know that he's most
famous for his candid street photography. How much else did he
shoot that just doesn't get talked about as much? Landscapes?
Macro? Wildlife? Concerts? Sporting Events? Aircraft? (This
is not a rhetorical question -- like I said, I'm less familiar
with his work than I ought to be.) My _impression_ was that at
least part of the reason he was able to uses such a minimal kit
so effectively was that he was specializing in a particular type
of shooting.
Note that two of my walking-around combinations are a body with a
50mm, and a body with a 35-105 zoom. And that I did describe
the 50mm as "a compromise length" -- _almost_ wide enough for
some things and better than being stuck with a long lens when
you want a wide; _almost_ long enough for other things and
better than being stuck with a wide when you want a short
telephoto; and although I don't think I actually said it
earlier, yes, 50mm is the _perfect_ length for still other
subjects (that is, its usefulness is not limited to those times
when you have to make one lens do the work of four). So yeah, I
do acknowledge that one body with a 50mm lens lets you make an
awful lot of pictures.
I just don't find that a sufficient tool for everything that I,
in my artistic greed[*] (and having a different -- though
overlapping -- set of interests than Henri Cartier-Bresson),
want to shoot.
Though I'm going to have to find a book of Cartier-Bresson's
work in the library and think about that a bit.
-- Glenn
[*] I want to shoot it all ... I want to be _good_ at it all ...
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