Travel photography requires wide angle
I decided to bring a Tokina 12-24mm
The Nikon 18-200mm lens is extremely versatile and practical especially for the mixture of travel and documentary photography when its great zoom range can be fully utilized under quickly changing circumstances (sounds like I copied and pasted this but I did not).
When a group of kids “attack” with their cheerful Hello!!! and run up close to the camera no lens is ever wide enough to take that group shot!
But a moment later when it is time to take individual portraits the use of longer focal length is needed.
Good (photojournalistic) portraits can be taken with a wide angle lens as well but sometimes it is good to put some distance between the camera and the subject for their comfort level which is not easy with at a wide angle lens.
Kids have a short attention span and to get those genuine not posed photos the initial few seconds are the key to produce something.
After time passes the kids either loose interest in a drawn out session or become too posed or self conscious.
This does not always happen and my approach to get the best mix of photos has been from walking up to a location, capturing those initial high energy crazy moments and continuing with a more calm and more introspective photos.
There is not always time to change lenses so the Nikon 18-200mm lens is wide enough at 18mm to handle most wide angle, telephoto and everything in between situations.
So the only time I need to change lenses is when the 18mm is not wide enough anymore and it is time to use the 12mm focal length. This does not happen as often that it would become a burden.
To illustrate that the difference between 12mm and 18mm does justify having to carry around an extra lens, here are some Tokina 12-24mm and Nikon 18-200mm lens comparison photos.
The first photo is always the one taken with the Nikon 18-200mm lens. They look good to me at 18mm not too narrow or constrained.
But the second photo taken with the Tokina 12-24mm shows the added few millimeters in focal length make a big difference and include considerably more in the frame.
All these picture below were taken at times when I did not have the chance to step back and just use the Nikon 18-200mm once again proving that these wide angle lenses are worth their weight in cheap plastic!
Some things have to get cropped out due to necessity.
The point with this picture of a pagoda in Battambang, Cambodia were those vertical lines the columns provide offset by the horizontals of the steps and the decoration of the bottom section.
With the wider lens we gain the golden fixtures showing on the roof as well the banana tree leaves:
The steps of this pagoda in Ha Tien, Vietnam provide a great perspective at 18mm and the red color really pops but the photo is lacking the context of its surroundings.
Shot using 12mm focal length the added blue balance out the colors and provide additional elements:
This beautiful pond alongside ancient runs in Sukhothai, Thailand had curves a painter could not have created better.
At 18mm it was impossible to include all the parts of the scene. I definitely wanted to show the reflection of the branches on the left but that cropped out the large oval shaped green section on the right.
Shot at 12mm the photo gains great sense of perspective and a more balanced feel:
Red boats in Ha Tien, Vietnam shot from a bridge show what is important but the wider angle version clearly tells more story:
The half submerged boat was the point of this typical scenery of a “trashy backyard” showing the life alongside the Mekong River in Chau Doc, Vietnam.
A little more context and architecture is revealed on the wider 12mm focal length photo:
A birds eye view from an overpass shows a grocery shop and a street scene in Saigon, Vietnam.
The first photo shot at 18mm is quite balanced but the 12mm wide angle version shows more, interestingly including the blue sky with white stripes of clouds matching the same striped patterns of the store’s shades below:
A view from my hotel room three stories above a busy market in Chau Doc, Vietnam.
I was able to fit quite a lot into the photo even using 18mm focal length because I was high above. I cropped the picture as close to the roof of the indoor market as possible to show maximum amount of street scene.
The wider shot reveals the intersection and the street corners providing a more interesting visual:
Photo taken while looking down from a bridge at houses on stilts on the Mekong River in Chau Doc, Vietnam.
The point of the photo is the square shaped sectioned off area which was difficult to fit in while also including houses in the upper left an right corners to provide some context to the scene.
At 18 mm focal length everything looks squeezed in compared to the wider angle photo:
A frame of Mekong Delta life shot from opposite side of the same bridge in Chau Doc, Vietnam.
I wanted to include the horizon and the curve of the river but also the three boats on the bottom. At a wider angle more foreground is visible with people working and a kid playing:
A really dirty river captured just for the sake of memories in Haiphong, Vietnam.
The point of the photo is the floating trash but nice perspective is gained with using the wider angle:
A really nice vivid green pond was a lucky find while walking around the back streets in Ninh Binh, Vietnam.
I wished to include as much green as possible while still showing the interesting circular “thing”. The wider shot shows more green with added background elements of the neighborhood:
The moral of this post: size does matter, less (in focal length) is sometimes a lot more and that the Tokina 12-24mm
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April 11th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
theses are fantastic great even