How Size Matters

When picturetaking, most often I’m concerned about the subject that is closest to me. I’ll pick the length of the lens that emphasizes the subject.

But there are often times that I’ll want the subject to fit in nicely with the background. By using a zoom lens, I can compose the subject in the viewfinder by varying the lens length setting.

While taking these photographs, I stood in the same place at the same distance from the foreground subject. I changed only the length of the lens (using a 24 to 240mm zoom lens).

As I’m not verbally astute enough to give you a proper explanation, I’ll show you visually how changing the lens length interacts with the perspective of the background.

My favorite is the last photo taken with the longest lens setting which emphasizes the mountains in the background.

For those that are interested, the foreground subject is the Moulton barn along Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park. The background are some of the iconic mountains of the Teton Range.

---

---

For reference this is a photo taken with an iPhone at 4.5mm (equivalent to 26mm lens)

---

full frame camera with lens set at 27mm

---

full frame camera with lens set a 37mm

---

full frame camera with lens set at 53mm

---

full frame camera with lens set at 66mm

---

full frame camera with lens set at 83mm

---

Zambriskie Point is of my favorite areas to visit in Death Valley. I am awed by its magnificent landscape created by millions of years of erosion. When climb the steep path from the visitor entrance, you’re immediately greeted by the heavily textured, sandy colored alluvial fans.

This day as I walked up the path I could barely see two people standing on one of the flat areas in the distance. They looked like ants on the rocks. The juxtaposition of the tiny figures against the huge backdrop of these badlands was an interesting view.

My equipment was a Sony NEX-7 camera with a medium 18-200mm zoom lens. This is the image that I captured of the couple. The EXIF data tells me that the lens was zoomed to 44mm.
The above photo was the only one that I took of the couple. When I viewed the image in my “computer darkroom”, I wanted to see how the scene would look if I had used the zoom feature of the lens. I magically zoomed by cropping the original image. The result is that the couple and the rocky landscape show up in much more detail. Which one do you preferr?

While I like both images, I prefer the zoomed in version. This is an example of composing your image after the fact.

The Rest of The Story

This article is the another in a series of articles that I’ve called “About this photo” to draw attention to a few of those memorable photos that may be hiding in a shoebox or on your hard drive.

I’ve been wanting to visit the iconic Horseshoe Bend for many years and I finally had my chance a few weeks ago.

As its name suggests, the Colorado River makes an abrupt 270 turn in the shape of a horseshoe. It’s located downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell near the city of Page, AZ. Drive 5 miles south on US89 from Page and you’ll see a gravel parking lot. From there a half mile hike on a moderately sloped dirt trail brings you to the overlook.

I arrived late in the day and found quite a few onlookers and photographers awaiting the sunset.

 

The overlook is about 50 yards across and provides a wonderfully wide view of the river – both upstream and downstream. The Colorado sits below the jagged cliffs about 1000 feet down. These spectators are standing pretty close to the edge of the cliff. And while I love the scenic surroundings, I am not a big fan of steep cliffs so I made it a point to stay behind this couple.
There’s plenty of room to accommodate dozens of visitors without feeling crowded. As you can see these photographers had lots of space in which to set up their equipment while waiting for the sun to go down. From this vantage point, the cliff on which they are standing looks safe…….
However, in this next photograph I’ve stepped away from the edge so that you can see the rock platform on which they were positioned. These people are a lot more brave than me. I couldn’t bring myself to stand next to them. I wasn’t about to stand just inches from the cliff’s edge that drops down by a thousand feet. No, not this photographer.
So how did I get this unobstructed view of Horseshoe Bend? As Paul Harvey would say here’s “the Rest of the Story”.
My shooting position was immediately to the left of the four photographers with tripods. To take this photograph, I laid on my stomach and carefully crawled to the edge of the cliff. My camera was safely hanging from my neck by its strap. Since I had a very wide angle lens (15mm), I first took a deep breath to get some courage, leaned over the edge, calmly composed the scene in the viewfinder and finally snapped about three shots.

 
So there you have it. By itself, this Horseshoe Bend photograph certainly doesn’t tell the story behind it. To inject a slight bit of humor here, let me say that I’m not afraid of heights, only of falling from them. I wasn’t going to leave the overlook until I had my shot. A little dirt on my clothes is the price that I had to pay to get it.

 
Written by: Arnie Lee

 

---

 

 

Newer Posts »