I had the occasion a few days ago to take some open air bridal portraits of a wonderful woman, of whom her wedding I’ll be photographing in a few weeks.
As I am convinced that preparation is key to a good night’s sleep I brought a variety of redundant equipment to the shoot. And I needed it.
All went well, except that my wireless flash trigger – the CyberSync trigger stopped working. I thought that it may have shorted, but I couldn’t open the transmitter case without damaging it. Having thought ahead, I hunted through my case and found not only a long cable to connect the studio flash to the camera, but also the camera adapter to make it work. It turned out that the transmitter just needed the battery removed and replaced, but the cable saved the day.
The moral of this story is to think through each shoot and bring enough equipment that you can bypass a disaster.
Lenses are expensive. They are expensive for various reasons, but the main one is because of what is known as the maximum aperture. Maximum aperture is the lens setting that lets the most light through in any given moment. By letting in relatively more light than a less expensive lens it allows for a faster or briefer shutter speed, and limited “depth of field”. And a limited or shallow depth of field means only the focal point and slightly in front and behind this point is in focus, and that can be attractive.
But there is a problem… and the problem is that the most popular types of lenses – zooms are one of compromise. And no manufacturer has been able to make a lens that’s tack sharp at all aperture settings, and all zoom settings. The truth is that the manufacturers build lenses that are sharpest at mid-zoom range, and at mid-apertures.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you don’t want to spend $2,000 on a f2.8 70-200mm zoom lens but are enamored with the idea of a lens that is wonderful to shoot “wide open” or at f2.8. Unfortunately, this lens will probably not be tack sharp until the aperture is reduced to f5.6 or f8, 1/4 to 1/8 of its maximum light transmitting capability. And then only when set to a medium magnification, let’s say 130mm.
All is not lost, just buy the next level down lens for about $600 which will have a maximum f4 aperture (1/2 the light gathering power) and use this lens at f8. You’ll get the same quality images, but save a huge amount of money.
So why spend $2,000 when you can spend $600. The old answer was that the extra light gathering power was really useful when shooting weddings in dark churches, or that the camera focused easier. But with new camera designs. that isn’t a big problem any more. The cameras can be set to a higher ISO or “speed” so that the shutter speed can be set to a non-shake setting, and the auto-focus mechanisms do a much better job than before.
It’s only going to get better.