Brad AKA "Orangecicle" on ADVrider wrote to me a while back:
"Anthony, I've read your "Way out West" ride-report with great interest. I'm a former newspaper photographer from way back -- in the days of Nikon FM2s and manual focus. I later went to law school and left journalism behind. Some years ago I picked up a camera again -- a D100. That recently died, and I bought a Canon 60D
with the 18-135 kit lens.
I want to add to my lenses, but things are so expensive these days. My photojournalism buddy wants me to buy a 70-200mm f2.8
, but that's too expensive. I'm considering a straight Canon 200mm f2.8 L
, but I'm also interested in the superwides (Tokina 11-16mm,
Tokina 12-24mm
, Canon 10-22mm
).
Any thoughts on what lens you would purchase first? Basically, I enjoy the type of work that you do - I ride my KTM Adventure and photograph my little part of the world.
Years ago I had a Nikon 20mm F2.8 and really loved that lens, but you get the obvious distortion of subjects on the sides of those superwides. So, I'm really torn on what to do.
By the way, I bought and downloaded your first Motojournalism book. Really enjoyed it. Thanks for any thoughts. Keep up the good work.
- Brad
"Anthony, I've read your "Way out West" ride-report with great interest. I'm a former newspaper photographer from way back -- in the days of Nikon FM2s and manual focus. I later went to law school and left journalism behind. Some years ago I picked up a camera again -- a D100. That recently died, and I bought a Canon 60D with the 18-135 kit lens. I want to add to my lenses, but things are so expensive these days. My photojournalism buddy wants me to buy a 70-200mm f2.8
, but that's too expensive. I'm considering a straight Canon 200mm f2.8 L, but I'm also interested in the superwides (Tokina 11-16mm, Tokina 12-24mm, Canon 10-22mm).Any thoughts on what lens you would purchase first? Basically, I enjoy the type of work that you do - I ride my KTM Adventure and photograph my little part of the world.
Years ago I had a Nikon 20mm F2.8 and really loved that lens, but you get the obvious distortion of subjects on the sides of those superwides. So, I'm really torn on what to do.
By the way, I bought and downloaded your first Motojournalism book. Really enjoyed it. Thanks for any thoughts. Keep up the good work.
- Brad
I understand the dilemma! It's a big investment to build your kit of lenses, and there's no easy answer because there are so many possibilities and so many ways to use a given lens.
I'm sure you know you're going to get a very different style of photography from a long lens than from a wide-angle, so it depends on what type of image you're partial to; the expansive view, deep focus and exaggerated angles of the wide-angle, or the isolation and shallow focus of the long lens.
Put simply; a telephoto acts like a telescope, a wide-angle acts like the peep-hole in a front door.
A wide-angle takes everything in, but you need to get CLOSE!
A telephoto lens can pick out a distant object and isolate it against a background.
..."
