Struggle with zoom

[bwidjaja]

Good Friday Everyone... (and it is Good Friday in the US)

For almost the past 2 years, I have been shooting mostly film cameras with prime lenses. Recently, i acquired a zoom lens for convenience purpose to be used on the m4/3 camera.

Boy, talk about adjustment. When I started shooting film again, I had to learn how to pre-visualize with the single prime lens attached to the camera before taking picture. But after sometime with prime, and now with zoom, i am having a hard time pre-visualizing. Not sure if it is because i tend to use the zoom in a point and shoot mode. That is i bring the camera to my eye and then decide to shoot.

Anybody facing similar struggle? Any advice is appreciated.

 

[umcelinho]

it's weird to use zoom once you get used to primes. what i ended up doing with the compacts i had was to use the lens either at the widest or at the longest setting, never an intermediate. it wasn't something thought of, but when i saw i was using it like this.

 

[Keith]

it's weird to use zoom once you get used to primes. what i ended up doing with the compacts i had was to use the lens either at the widest or at the longest setting, never an intermediate. it wasn't something thought of, but when i saw i was using it like this.

I tend to do the same thing! Or I just decide on a focal length and set it before I bring the viewfinder to my eye. It's a bit like having a few primes in one lens! 😀

 

[nikon_sam]

I prefer primes...I've used them enough that I can usually grab the right one for the shot I'm looking at...plus working with two bodies allow me to have to very different lenses at the ready...the list includes 24, 28 35, 50, 85, 135, 180 and 300...the only zooms I have are a Tamron 28-70mm (Nikon mount) and two Vivitar Series 1's 35-85mm & 70-210mm in Pentax mount...

 

[TaoPhoto]

I also prefer primes, they're what I use most of the time. I don't find zooms that different, though. While I visualize before putting viewfinder to eye, I nearly always modify after seeing how the framing comes out. Depending on the framing, I might back up or walk forward to get what I want. I'm not sure that it's really any different with a zoom. At least not to me.

 

[Stuart John]

I went out with my D80 and my Tamron 28-75 f2.8 today. It has not seen much use this year as I have been shooting B&W film with manual primes. I can't say I really enjoyed using it. The conditions were really contrasty. I ended up locking the the zoom at 28mm pre focusing at 2 meters and stopping down to F8 in apeture priorty mode.

Would have been easier to take my FED3 or FM2 loaded with APX100 shot at 1/125 F8. Would have handled the lighting much better.

Well here is the best shot of the day.