For the most part, I tend to shoot with either 28mm or 50mm lenses. Part of that is due to taking a lot of pictures in the city where everything is close so the 28-50mm range usually suffices.
Even when I use my Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 lens, I don’t often zoom in as much as I can. Looking at the last time I used it, which I wrote about in my May 2021 Update, I exceeded 50mm for only 5 out of 21 photos, 3 of which were barely past 50mm.
Two at 56mm:
And 1 at 58mm:
The 2 longer ones were at 70mm:
And at 85mm:
I mention all this just to point out that it’s somewhat notable that I went out twice recently with lenses with longer focal lengths.
I took a rain-shortened walk with my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and my Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 lens.
Obviously, shooting at an unfamiliar focal length forced me to think about my shots differently. Using a more telescopic lens allowed me to take tighter pictures of things farther away, but it also let me take an interesting closer up shot of some twigs caught in a gap in the walkway above the Schuylkill River.
I also went out with my Minolta Celtic 135mm f/3.5 lens on my Minolta XE loaded with Ilford HP5 Plus. I wrote about the other pictures I had taken with that roll in my Trip to FDR Park post, but the majority of the pictures came from this walk with the 135mm lens.
In the past, I haven’t been all that happy with most of the photos I had taken with an 85mm or 135mm lens, but I am really pleased with how most of these turned out. I’m glad I didn’t let those previous less than ideal results discourage me from trying those lenses again. I foresee returning to them again before too long.
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