As promised, I did two trips out over the last weekend taking only my 18mm Fuji lens (well, and the camera body obviously…), with a determination to get a decent amount of usage from it and try to get my head around street photography with a wide-angle lens. I’m going to split this into two posts, one about my walkabout in Canterbury, the latter one on Margate.
I wanted to try to get a range of different shots, not just pointing the lens upwards for architecture shots, nor just catching wide-angle street scenes. I went out thinking I would push myself to try different styles. It would be very easy to come back with a load of identikit shots with the only difference being the people in the shot. So I looked for abstracts, details, candids, plus yes, the odd street view or architectural shot.
Before I get into it more, let’s get the boring stuff out of the way…
camera settings
I shot the vast majority at f8 (with some exceptions), with a shutter speed of 1/1000th (unless it was a static subject, in which case I might drop it down a bit), ISO set to auto and exposure compensation was anything from -1 to -2. I used zonal focusing, leaving the focus at around 2m for most of the day. This ensured a wide depth of field, and meant I didn’t have to fiddle around with the focus too much as I was walking around (unless I shifted the f-stop and wanted a very shallow depth of field).
Ok, boring stuff done, moving on…
Canterbury
So how did I find it? Difficult. I’ll be honest (no spoilers!), I found day one more difficult than day two. I wasn’t really happy with what I came away with in Canterbury. On reflection, I decided that the problem was for the kind of photography I like, wide-angle would only work in a handful of spots. Canterbury is obviously only a small city, and it felt fairly limited in terms of compositions that would work at a wide-angle. There’s the classics of course (Butchery Lane and the view of the cathedral, or the Buttermarket for example), but little else immediately sprung to mind.
Now, this might say more about me than anything else, it just seemed quite difficult to spot shots that would work at 18mm (27mm on full frame). I came to thinking that if I was in a large city walking around, I’d find many more compositions, but in Canterbury it was a bit more difficult. I think some photographers would get a lot from a wide angle lens in the city, with the opportunities for candid photos and layering, but they’re not something that come easy to me, so finding those kinds of shots is a bit of a struggle. All that said though, I think all of this was more about the limitations I placed upon myself, the blockage I had already decided that I wanted to overcome. I don’t think I did overcome it, but I think the experience helped me to explore some potential I’d probably not seen before in the 18mm. And quite possibly the walk in Canterbury made the next day in Margate much easier…
Anyway, let me know what you think. I do think the Margate ones are better, but no shame in sharing photos from a disappointing trip. It’s all part of the process after all…