How To Get the Best Performance from Your Camera Lens, Parts I and II (TOP Classic)

[Originally published in four parts under the title "How to Stress a Camera Lens" in 2008. This newly re-edited republication is Parts I and II.

Copyright 2008, 2014 by Michael C. Johnston. All Rights Reserved.]

Part I. How Not to Stress a Lens

Most lenses in history, and especially now, are capable of excellent results—as long as they aren't stressed. In a moment I'll talk about how to "stress" a lens (i.e., deliberately explore the boundaries of its performance in order to expose its weaknesses). But first, here's how to see the best performance of your lens under optimum conditions:

1. Shoot in strong white light with the camera pointed away from the light source, with no specular reflections or light sources in the picture and no impinging light shining directly on the objective (outermost lens element). Use at least a short lens hood to block light impinging from a radical angle.

2. Use the widest aperture at which aberrations are minimized, which usually involves stopping the lens down two or three stops from wide open.

3. Use a fine-grained, low-contrast pictorial film, or your digital imaging sensor at its optimum or "base" sensitivity ("ISO"). With many digital cameras, the base ISO is around 200, even if the camera can be set at lower values.

4. Minimize blur caused by subject and camera motion—this might be accomplished with the use of a tripod or other means of mechanically steadying the camera—and arrange your subject so as to minimize both foreground and background blur.

5. Don't focus too close—lens designs vary, but perhaps stick within a magnitude of 2 or 3 of (50 • ƒ) (where ƒ = the lens focal length). Thus, for a 50mm (2-inch) lens, you would want to place your main subject perhaps 50 to 200 inches (~4–16 ft.) from the camera.

6. Focus carefully. Focus errors are a very common cause of image degradation—much more common than most people realize. (I see focus errors in published work and "great master" photographs regularly.)

7. Don't enlarge the resulting picture in the print or onscreen past a modest limit.

8. (Digital only) to minimize "chromatic aberration" (i.e., purple fringing), don't ask your lens to image complex, fine-lined subjects with high-contrast edges, such as bare tree branches against a white sky, especially near the edge or corners of the frame.

9. (Zoom lens only) use an intermediate setting in the zoom range. Generally, a kit-type zoom will show its strongest performance if you zoom in roughly a third of the way in from its widest setting. (Even though the actual optimum setting will vary from lens to lens, this will usually be close enough.) Doing this will mainly ameliorate geometrical distortion, and falloff (also called "vignetting").

10. Make sure the lens is clean.

With these ten conditions met, you'll probably find that your lens is a very good performer indeed. Even lenses that are very far from state-of-the-art (older budget 50mms, "kit" zooms) will perform well. This includes many very old lenses and lenses with significant budget compromises, or even the lens permanently attached to an inexpensive consumer camera. Some of the prettiest prints I ever saw were pictures made with a tripod-mounted single-coated Miranda lens from the 1960s. They just happened to be made under conditions pretty close to those described above.

Part II. How to Stress a Lens

"Stressing" a camera lens basically involves moving incrementally away from these ideal conditions, such that the lens will be less and less likely to maintain peak performance. Here are a few of the ways this can be done.

Flare
Flare is the effect of non-image-forming light on a picture. It takes two basic forms: ghosting and veiling glare. "Ghosting" refers to reflections or any kind of spurious visual artifact; veiling glare is an overall softening or contrast-cutting effect. Flare might also have numerous other causes, including but not limited to reflections within the camera or lens and light leaks in and around the film chamber or sensor plane, or perhaps impinging from the unblocked viewfinder window; or such effects as "starbursts" around bright sources of light in the picture.

Although generally perceived as undesirable, flare properties can create expressive photographic effects. Here is a good example of both kinds of flare. (Note the illuminated strands of hair across the face that "survive" the veiling glare.) If you aren't accepting of such fortunate accidents, however, a lens that flares as badly as this one did could be quite frustrating, or limiting.

I have three basics trials for lens flare. One is to make pictures with a bright light source in it, such as the sun. Especially with that light source off-axis, you can get a handle on the lens's common ghosting artifacts. A second is to place the sun or source of light outside the picture area, but let it shine on the objective (outermost element) of the lens. This gives you an idea of how susceptible the lens is to veiling glare and might give you clues as to whether internal reflections in the lens are a potential problem. The last is what I call "The Window Test"—with the lens opened up as for an interior scene, place a large source of much brighter light, such as a large window illuminated by the sky, just outside the picture area. Look especially at the contrast of fine detail in the interior scene. Some lenses which otherwise handle the causes of flare with aplomb will flunk the Window Test (notably including the otherwise excellent Leica 35mm Summicron-R designed by Walther Mandler); others will flunk it at certain apertures and not others, something that's good to know.

Aperture range
A common characteristic of camera lenses is for their performance to vary at different apertures. As mentioned above, most lenses have a one- or two-aperture "sweet spot" where aberrations are minimized and diffraction effects are least prominent. With 35mm prime (single focal length) lenses this is almost always within a stop of ƒ/8; with many double-Gauss view camera lenses it's within a stop of ƒ/22. With digital cameras that have smaller than "full frame" sensors, the optimum aperture will be wider. It's useful to know what the optimum aperture of your lens is.

Most lenses will be stressed by moving away from this optimum aperture. Diffraction effects can lower the overall resolution of a lens at small apertures, and of course aberrations of various kinds tend to be less well corrected at wider apertures.

Many of the properties of a lens at various apertures are "designed in," so to speak. They are the results of what might be called the designer's "philosophy," i.e., the tradeoffs selected where desirable parameters oppose. One aspect of this is whether the lens is optimized for best performance in the axial zone (center), allowing the performance to degrade as image height increases (i.e., toward the corners), or whether the choice is made to accept a somewhat lower but more consistently even performance from center to corner. Another design choice that relates to the speed of the lens (its maximum aperture) is that the designer might go for the highest possible performance at the optimum aperture and let performance fall off relatively more dramatically as you move further away from that aperture in the lens's range, or the designer might try for more consistent performance throughout the aperture range.My own preference is for lenses that show consistency, both across the frame and up and down the range of aperture settings. That is not everybody's choice; I remember for instance that when Lewis Baltz was doing his 35mm pictures of tract houses and industrial parks, like those in his book Park City, I heard that he had tested the Summicron (ƒ/2) and Summilux (ƒ/1.4) lenses then available, and found that although the Summicron was better wide open and was more consistent throughout it aperture settings, the Summilux reached the higher performance at optimum aperture. Baltz chose it for that reason, since he anticipated using a high-resolution film with his rangefinder camera on a tripod.

Consistency of the sort I prefer is relatively easy to detect from tests, if you have a family of MTF curves to interpret, or from the useful new "Blur Index" reports at SLRgear.com. In a lens test at SLRgear.com, if you click on the "Blur Index" panel, it brings up an interactive window that shows you a graphic of sharpness at each aperture. The lower (more towards zero or violet color) and the flatter this graphic representation is, the better. If you look quickly through the tests of a couple of dozen different lenses, you can see how it tends to go: wide open, lenses tend to be worse in the corners (that is, the test graphic is more bowl-shaped) and higher (less sharp), then it flattens and lowers as you move to ƒ/8, then it rises (while staying flat, more or less) as the aperture is reduced further (this shows the sharpness-deteriorating effect of diffraction). As an example of this, look at the Canon 28mm ƒ/1.8 (the uneveness in the concave graph of this lens wide open, with two corners higher than the other two, is probably the result of decentered lens elements in the tested sample). A consistent lens of the type I prefer will show a flat, low plane wide open that doesn't change much as it is stopped down, only rising somewhat as the aperture is stopped past ƒ/8 and diffraction kicks in. As a superlative example of this, look at the graphic for the Olympus Digital Zuiko 50mm ƒ/2 Macro. This lens's best aperture is ƒ/4, but, as you can see, it is only marginally worse at ƒ/2.

You can't tell everything about a lens from lens tests—most tests tell you nothing about flare and bokeh, for example—but a lens's consistency from center to corner and up and down the aperture range is one thing you can learn from tests. The general rule, however, is clear: most camera lenses are at their worst wide open. To most effectively get less than optimum performance from a lens—to "stress" it in the way I've been using the term—use it wide open.

Years ago I used a camera with a fixed ƒ/4 lens, the Fuji GS645s, but the camera was severely limited, not so much by the modest maximum aperture as by the fact that that aperture was unusable—the Fuji needed to be stopped down at least one stop to reach decent optical performance, and two stops to reach good performance. Although its maximum aperture was ƒ/4, its maximum effective aperture was ƒ/5.6, with ƒ/8 considerably better still, meaning that it was essentially a daylight or tripod camera—not the happiest situation for a camera that was designed to be light, portable, and hand-holdable. (Picture courtesy pbase.com Camera Database)

A lens which reaches its optimum aperture when wide open is said to be "diffraction limited." The term signifies a lens for which diffraction is the worst cause of image degradation at full aperture, with diffraction effects exceeding the deleterious effects of all the other aberrations. You can also speak of a lens being diffraction limited at a certain ƒ-stop—"diffraction limited by ƒ/8," say—but that's really just another way of saying that the specified aperture is the lens's optimum aperture.

Curvature of field
Another "designed in" property of lenses at specific apertures is curvature of field—that is, when a lens's plane of focus is not a plane. This is a difficult property for most photographers to test, and it's generally even more difficult to recognize its visual effects in pictures. Take a look at this example (from Danny Wolpert, the same photographer as the earlier example I used—he seems to enjoy exploring lens effects. Thanks and props to Danny). It's an excellent example of the visual effects of curvature of field. Notice how the bokeh or degree of out-of-focus blur is varied depending on where in the frame it is? In the center of the frame, the yellow flowers are quite blurred only a half dozen paving stones past the gate. But the tree leaves and plants in the upper right-hand corner are considerably less blurred than you would expect them to be given that they appear to be considerably farther away from camera position. This is a visible effect of curvature of field. In this picture, the effect is not consistently what I would expect to see, leading me to to suspect that this particular picture has been cropped by the photographer (although I might be wrong about that). (I was also fascinated to see such extreme curvature of field from this particular lens, which was in some respects quite highly corrected for its day.)

Although detecting curvature of field is often considerably complicated—even masked—by complex pictorial subjects, it's possible to train yourself to see it (although speaking from personal experience I would recommend that you not do so! Sometimes it's best to let sleeping dogs lie).

Focus distance
Lenses can be optimized for different focus distances. (This is one of many reasons why standardized tests often reach not-quite right conclusions from correct data.) Many camera lenses are (sensibly enough) optimized for an intermediate focus distance. To stress it, go to the extremes—infinity focus or the lens's close-focus point.

Some older lenses are optimized for infinity. Typical lenses, including but not limited to these, will usually be at their weakest at their closest focus. I've even used a few "Macro" lenses that are not actually optimized for the closeup range—the superb Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm ƒ/2 Macro (note: the film version, not the same lens I mentioned earlier) is one of these—thankfully, since that made it better as a general-purpose normal lens.

Bokeh
Bokeh just means out-of-focus blur, as distinct from the blur caused by a moving subject or a moving camera (i.e., camera shake) or both. The further an image object is from the plane of focus, the less clearly imaged it will be, and the properties of the blur vary from lens to lens and can have varying aesthetic impact.

Bokeh-aji ("the taste of blur," literally) is indeed a matter of taste, but, very broadly speaking, photographers tend to want the in-focus subjects to also be the focus of the viewer's attention, and therefore prefer out-of-focus blur that is unobtrusive and doesn't call attention to itself. Just as a single lens has a whole "suite" of imaging properties depending on its settings and how it's being used, so no single lens has bokeh properties of only one simple description. Bokeh can differ depending on which side of the plane of focus it's on (front or back), and generally bokeh is worse:

• the closer the focus;
• the wider the aperture;
• the farther from the plane of best focus the image object is; and
• the higher the contrast of the imaged object.

So, to stress a lens for bokeh, use it at wider apertures and closer focus distances with high-contrast imaged objects on both sides of the plane of best focus and as far as possible from it. (Note that this fairly describes photographic situations typically confronted in poorly-lit interiors, where, indeed, lots of lenses come up short.)

Enlarging
Generally, high degrees of enlargement expose the morphology of film grain, the technique of the darkroom worker or digital printer, and make the optical shortcomings of the lens's imaging properties more apparent. Obviously, every digital photography enthusiast knows this, as "pixel-peeping" (Michael Reichmann's term) at 100% to 400% onscreen is so easy to do and so tempting to do. Thus, to stress a lens, over-enlarge its image.

Purple fringing
Digital photographers are only too aware of the phenomenon of purple fringing, often not-quite-correctly referred to as "chromatic aberration" (purple fringing is an artifact of the lens and the sensor together, not just one or the other). How to stress a lens for this defect is well known: tree branches against a bright sky. The defect can show up in many other situations too, but that's the paradigm.

(A related phenomenon is "color replacement," where a dark cable or branch against a bright sky will appear to be a different color throughout than the same object looks against a less contrasted background. Dark blue-gray instead of black, for instance.)

This illustration, unmanipulated, shows a detail of about 1/8th of the frame from the upper corner of a picture made with the Konica-Minolta 7D and the otherwise excellent Sigma 30mm ƒ/1.4 lens. Note that purple fringing is the result of interaction between a lens and a sensor, and should not be considered a definitive characteristic of the lens alone; on other cameras this lens might not yield the identical result. However, since this was my camera at the time, I opted not to keep this lens. As this defect can be corrected in software, some users might not be as troubled by it.

Hey! No fair
Moving the camera or misfocusing it are surefire ways to degrade a lens's performance, but they can't really be said to stress the lens in the sense that I've been using that term here. A lens can't do anything about being misused, and misusing it doesn't tell you anything meaningful about its inherent properties. But I hope it goes without saying that a picture blurred by camera shake isn't going to reveal the lens's best performance.

An important thing to remember here is that—as with misfocusing—the effects of camera shake can be very minimal and hard to detect on casual viewing, while still very substantially degrading lens performance. The better you know your lens, the easier it will be to see when you haven't quite let it shine.

Zoom issues
Another property "built in" to the lens when it's designed is distortion (simply put, whether it renders straight lines in a subject as straight—especially apparent when they're parallel to, and close to, the picture's edges). With primes, the distortion is what it is—nothing you can do about it. With zooms, however, it's another story. Generally, moderate-range zooms will progress from barrel distortion (sometimes pretty severe) at the wide end, to pincushion distortion (thought usually not very severe) at the tele end. Somewhere in the middle there is a "most neutral" setting for distortion. Usually.

Avoiding the extremes is usually good enough. It's been my observation that a fair number of people tend to use zooms as essentially a dual-setting prime lens, throwing the zoom ring from one end to the other and seldom using the in-between settings. Optically that's perhaps not the best practice, as zooms are typically at their worst at the extremes of their range. A better practice is, when you can, to go all the way to the wide or tele end and then back off from that setting just a little. Obviously that's not always practical, since you may actually need to go wider than the widest setting or longer than the longest, in which case you will need to use all the range you have available. But a lot of times it is practical, and it's not a bad habit to get into.

Zeiss 35mm ƒ/2 Biogon

The goal
The goal of learning all this is to get to know your lens. The story may be apocryphal, the speaker supposedly a Leica lens designer from back in days of yore: "The only way to test a lens is to use it for a year." That is, "lens tests," no matter how factual or scientific, are a shortcut.

Many amateur photographers conceive of their lens kits in terms of wanting to "cover" all the focal lengths or "be able to handle" any actual or imagined situation. They also like toys. Therefore they tend to overbuy lenses and have too many in their arsenals. One common result: under-familiarity with their own lenses, especially since amateurs may not shoot very much or very often. My feeling as a teacher is that one of the best things a hobbyist photographer can do to improve their seeing and their pictures is to limit the focal lengths available to them and use fewer lenses rather than more. Cartier-Bresson got by with one lens (although he often carried three, he only very seldomly used anything but the 50mm) and Sebastiao Salgado used three when he was making his early, formative work. You need more?

My preference and my habit has always been to use one or two lenses at a time. Two of the advantages of this approach is that it might allow you to invest in a relatively better lens(es), and you can get to know the lenses you have very well—two things which tend to feed off of and reinforce each other.

 

 

[Continued here]

Mike

Copyright 2008, 2014 by Michael C. Johnston. All Rights Reserved.

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Moose: "An interesting and useful article. As Stephen Gillette so aptly demonstrates, it only applies to some uses of lenses. To most of mine, but not all.

"It seems to me that there is a piece missing, though, perhaps as a result of updating an older piece. Many contemporary lenses rely on post capture correction of various aberrations in the camera's JPEG engine or in the RAW converter. This post processing is an integral part of the lens design process. Knowing, for example, that linear distortion will be corrected elsewhere, the lens designer(s) are free to relax that design constraint at least somewhat and more fully correct other aspect(s) of the optical design.

"However, not all RAW converters are equal. For example, Olympus Viewer 3 and ACR, using data provided by the lens, quite noticeably under correct barrel distortion of the Pannasonic 12–32mm (The very compact kit lens for the GM1 compact Micro 4/3 camera) at 12mm and close focus. On the other hand, DxO Pro, using their own profiles, correct it extremely well. PTLens is about as good, used on a file converted from RAW without distortion correction. For these lenses, one may need to learn not only the lens, but the software used to convert it from RAW."

Mike replies: Well said, and thanks for the very pertinent addendum.

Comments

[Stephen Gillette]

Wow. Funny: I just posted a new image (I choose not to divulge the lens that was used) to my tumblr. (Then I read your fine post.) All rules broken. Except for film emulsion. Would have broken that one, too, back in the day...

http://bit.ly/1nCkGdS

[Stephen McCullough]

Well this is TOP / Mike being powerfully useful.

Mike,
You have mentioned moving TOP to a new format. Please consider a richer way of finding this type of post - the "forever useful / excellent reminder / teaching" stuff.

Stephen

[Bruce Bordner]

A new look at this may be interesting = lenses are designed (slightly) differently for digital sensors, have new features (CPU, VR), and also the cameras have new lens-abilities.

Following Thom Hogan's suggestions, I tested my Nikkor lenses and found that all six had back-focus problems! So it wasn't all my fault...

Luckily, my D800 has an in-camera adjustment to fix that; all needed at least -10 to -19. What a coincidence, eh?

Still, it's there (in a few cameras) and made a visible difference for me (at 100% view anyway). One new gimmick that works.

I do prefer articles more about technique rather than tech, Even when they're outdated, something is always still useful and the exercise to convert it to today's tech is also informative.

[dkreithen]

I had a Fuji GS645S, the same one as in the picture. I always hated that lens for the reasons you cited, and it had possibly the worst bokeh of any lens I've ever used, including multiple Nikkors. I guess I wasn't the only one.

[Herman]

Next: "How to Stress a Photographer".

[Rick in CO]

Nice reminder - But most f2.8 to f4 lenses are best at f5.6 to f8. Think of what that Fuji would be if the ISO could be bumped up a'la digital! Your pix of the Zeiss 35 f2.0 ZM Biogon should have been of the f2.8 ZM Biogon, which is actually very usable at its maximum aperture! Few lenses have excellent performance wide open, those that do usually cost beaucoup dinaro. I have not seen anything to contradict the axiom that an f2.0 aperture for a 50mm lens is as good as it can get for ultimate performance. The new Leica, Sigma & Zeiss Super f1.4 50's are tempting, however. The ultimate successful test of a lens is that you keep it forever (or, as long as the camera lasts)!

[Rick in CO]

Check that I meant the Leica, Sigma & Zeiss Super f1.4 50's!

[David Brown]

I've heard many say that different examples of the same lens can vary in performance. I must have gotten lucky and gotten a better Fuji GS645 than you did. Mine is suburb all around. While I use it on a tripod almost all the time, I've used it handheld, in dim lighting, wide open, too. No complaints. It's about the sharpest lens I own (and I own a bunch)!

[Moose]

"I've even used a few "Macro" lenses that are not actually optimized for the closeup range—the superb Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm ƒ/2 Macro (note: the film version, not the same lens I mentioned earlier) is one of these—thankfully, since that made it better as a general-purpose normal lens."

True also of the OM Zuiko 90/2 Macro. This was a great disappointment to me. I bought this legendary lens, fool that I am, to do Macro shooting. It's IQ started to deteriorate closer than about 1:4.

I've never understood why, given that they already had an excellent 85/2 for general work, Oly made a 90/2 "Macro" that isn't.

I sold it on, and continued to use lenses labeled Macro that were actually designed for that purpose, The Zuiko 50/3.5, Kiron 105/2.8 and Tamron 90/2.5 (With matching teleconverter, also an excellent 180/5 macro).

BTW: As far as I can tell without buying one, from tests and examples, the 50/2 Macro is no better for actual macro than the 50/3.5.

BTW II: The Tamron 90/2.8 AF Macro lens is as good or better than any of the above @ 1:2 and 1:1 for flat field copy work. Only the 50/3.5, at 1:2, is competitive.

Moose

[Clayton Jones]

Another superlative example [of a very consistent lens]: the Olympus 75/1.8 for micro 4/3. Many consider this to be the best m43 lens of the entire system. I use it wide open for portraits, it's exquisite

http://slrgear.com/reviews/zproducts/olympus75f18m/tloader.htm

[Clayton Jones]

Mike,

Here's a link to a recent portrait done with the 75/1.8 on a GH2. Available light from a large window, 1/125 @ f/1.8, iso 160 (the subject gave his permission for me to post this online).

http://cjcom.net/files/348b-800-SRGB.jpg

To add to to my previous comment about the 75/1.8.

Thanks (and best of luck with the move),
Clayton

[Bil Mitchell]

It's hard to know when you're being serious, and when you're being satirical.

[Rainer Dempf]

It's the time again to wish for zoom lenses of great quality like an 18-22/4,
30-40/2,8, or 60-90/2 so that I can continue to wildly “throw the zoom ring from one end to the other“.

[Miserere]

I must be getting old—I remember when you published the original! Was a highly useful read to me back then.

[Bill Bresler]

It's interesting, to me, how camera/lens manufacturers now use software backflips and gyrations to correct some really bad lens performance. When I bought a Nikon D-7000 they included an 18-105mm kit lens. I intended to ebay the lens immediately, but discovered that the image quality was pretty good, and with the image stabilization, effectively a much faster lens than the actual maximum f-stops would suggest. But that was shooting jpegs. When I shot raw, as I prefer, I found out that the raw files were incompatible with my ancient versions of Photoshop and Lightroom. I downloaded the free Adobe raw to .dng converter. The converter strips out most of the software corrections, leaving you with files with ridiculous barrel distortion and obscene corner falloff. Don't even ask about the results from the Sony 16-50mm that came with my NEX-6. Sigh...

[Rob Smith]

Ooh that's my lens! The 35mm Biogon.

I'm currently doing the budget version of the Leica for a year, A Bessa R2 with the above lens and HP5+ film, and loving it.

By sticking with the same camera and lens combo, I have definitely started to 'see' how the lens sees, which is a complete change to how I used to shoot digital.

I am also aware of the rangefinder's and the lens's limitations, which have really helped me compose better, shoot faster, and because it's film, choose what I shoot and don't more effectively.

Thanks for all of the great articles, keep it up!

[mike plews]

One other way to keep from stressing a lens is to stay in it's sweet spot.
It's one of the reasons APS-C looks so good to me. I'm a Nikon user with a few older primes. The 50 1.4 and 105 2.5 are really nice on my DX camera.
Back in my large format days it was not unusual to have a 210mm as a normal for 4x5 even though logic would dictate something more in the 150mm range. Granted the larger image circle also helps a lot if your are shifting the lens.
Finally there's the old darkroom trick of going one size up for an enlarging lens. About all the negatives I work with anymore are 6x6 and I've been really pleased with how the prints look done with a 105mm 5.6 Nikkor which is a bit longer than the 75mm one would expect.
So how long has it been since anyone mentioned enlarging lenses on TOP? Do they even make enlarging lenses anymore? Suddenly feeling a little old here.

[Moose]

"The goal of learning all this is to get to know your lens."

I agree wholeheartedly.

"Many amateur photographers conceive of their lens kits in terms of wanting to "cover" all the focal lengths or "be able to handle" any actual or imagined situation. They also like toys. Therefore they tend to overbuy lenses and have too many in their arsenals."

Guilty - and yet - it's through actual use that I discover which lenses really work for me. Am I supposed to buy on the basis of tests or user recommendations? Sometimes that has worked, sometimes not (as with the Zuiko 90/2 'Macro' above). So I (over) buy what seems likely to please, and find out which do through experience.

"One common result: under-familiarity with their own lenses, especially since amateurs may not shoot very much or very often."

Well, yeah, I only shot a little over 12,000 last year. (Still haven't dug out of that blizzard; it should be fewer this year.)

"My feeling as a teacher is that one of the best things a hobbyist photographer can do to improve their seeing and their pictures is to limit the focal lengths available to them and use fewer lenses rather than more. Cartier-Bresson got by with one lens (although he often carried three, he only very seldomly used anything but the 50mm) and Sebastiao Salgado used three when he was making his early, formative work. You need more?"

Buy what if I don't want to be Henri Bloody C-B? Both these people are photojournalists/street shooters. I am totally uninterested in photojournalism. I've done street shooting, quite successfully, to my mind, using a completely different approach than the HC-B style. But my real loves are elsewhere.

I do take landscapes. I don't know how many lenses St. Ansel carried with him, and I don't care, as I find my own way to make the images I like.

"My preference and my habit has always been to use one or two lenses at a time."

I agree, and don't. I'd guess maybe 95% of my images are shot with three lenses. If I ignore more casual work with Panny GM1 and 12-32 (and before that, Pens with compact lenses, and a series of 'enthusiast' compacts), it's over 95% with two lenses, but they are zooms.

And yet, were have wildly different photography habits. I like many different kinds of subjects, from macro to long tele, and most of my shooting is done on the road.

These images from last Wednesday may be eclectic, but they are things I noticed and, to my mind, captured quite well. To do so required a great range of focal lengths and focal distances, although only two lenses. If that's what one wants, a couple of fixed focal length lenses will not work.

Like HC-B, doing most of his shots with one of the three lenses he carried, I also carry a super wide zoom, 60/2.8 macro and, for low light, Panny 20/1.7.

They may not get much use, but when the shot presents itself, in a place I may never visit again, in light I won't ever see exactly again, I'm ready. The beauty of µ4/3 is that they are small and light.

Moose

[Paulo Bizarro]

This is a great post, fully valid today still in terms of learning. This should be mandatory reading.

[John Robison]

A good companion to this post would be a link to your Sunday Morning Photographer post on LL about 50mm lenses and "metaphysical doubt". That was a classic!

[Crabby Umbo]

...gotta say, I had that same Fuji 645 and it was amazingly dead sharp, even wide open. Everything I shot with that thing was premo! You must have had a bad copy. I actually sold it to an assistant, for practically nothing, 'cause it bugged me that it was so hard to see and use the meter; he fell on it running for a bus and broke the whole thing! Sad...

I can say that I was never a Fuji lens "fan", I never thought the view camera stuff was all that sharp, it was really hit and miss. Nikon was the way to go there, or old "panda" Schneiders (or, of course, red dots). I had a video/cinematographer buddy in DC that spent much more on his rig than normal because he requested a Nikon lens on it when most of them were Fuji's. Nikon quit making those lenses, and when he went to sell it, there was a bidding war on between the knowledgeable, just based on the lens.

The Fuji 680 stuff was stellar tho, looked like Hasselblad.