"Zooming With Your Feet" Is Dumb

I tend to use just a single focal length lens and just one camera on my photographic excursions. However, I don't "zoom with my feet".

My approach is either (1) I choose the types of things I want to photograph beforehand and choose the lens I want, or (2) I choose the camera and lens I feel like using, and find subjects that fit.

If I see something that doesn't fit with what I have, I return later with a different camera or lens. If something has changed by that time, I really don't care - I'm not a photojournalist or Natural Geographic photographer, nor would I want to be.

This is just what I enjoy doing. It's not "limiting" because it's my own deliberate choice with full knowledge of the choices available. My choice of which equipment to use, my choice to have just one camera and lens at a time. This comes from experience (I first became seriously interested in photography in the 1970's). When I've had multiple bodies and lenses, I enjoyed neither the photography nor the trip.

It's not the weight of equipment, either - I've walked around town holding an RB67 and 140mm lens, making handheld shots.
 
My photography requires a lot of exploring often walking 10 miles or more a day from sunrise to sunset for that shot, so cannot bring an arsenal of lenses. Often for 135 format I would have an SLR with a normal zoom plus a Leica with a fast 35mm. For 6x6 my preferred format I only use one Rolleiflex 3.5f. So zooming with my feet is the only way I can travel with a one lens one camera kit. The drawback of course is missed shots. But if I bring too much I would not be able to seek out that shot. This one time aside from the Rollei I also brought the SWC with me to India. Surely I would not have gotten the shot with the Rolleiflex since the scene required the 38mm Biogon fullframe. Either be prepared with the right gear or not like you say.

Varanasi by ray tai, on Flickr
 
I find this to be a useful illustration, thanks for the post.

Everyone has their habit or preference, it’s a valuable exercise to see alternative ways of doing things. And seeing...
 
I think that "zoom with your feet" was more valid 20 years ago when zoom lenses, for the most part, gave rather shabby results. Zoom lenses have undergone a lot of development the last 10-15 years and the quality many of them deliver is more than sufficient for most tasks IMHO. That being said, I still use primes and foot zooming on occasion as some primes still have a slight edge over zoom lenses.


If you are used to a certain focal length and have worked with it for many years (for me that would be 50mm), you hardly ever have to do any foot zooming as you instinctively know where to place yourself 😉
 
When I was learning photography back in the early 90s , every article on magazines about composition would have a mantra like "zooming in and out doesn't change the perspective, if you don't like the perspective move closer or further". Wasn't also Capa who said something along the lines of " if it is not good enough, then you are not close enough ". Maybe that's how this motto started.

Personally I stopped using zooms for two reasons: not fast enough for indoor shooting and I noticed that the zooming in and out was distracting me sometimes. My aim is to always take a picture I like so I would use both ways to get there.
 
Getting in close as Chris did here to get the content he wanted comes at a cost. Buildings are like faces. We seldom (never) see a facade in the way the architect's elevation shows it. View cameras and shift lenses can restore parallel verticals but the essential dignity of a building requires careful consideration, like faces. I often use a 21 or even an 18 and crop out half the frame just to get those parallel verticals: I want the wider lens, but not so as to get close and exclude content, which I do with cropping. I try to work around unwelcome content with the lens on the camera, or accept that this is just not the shot I was hoping it could be. Getting closer with a wider lens would often be a deal-breaker for what I'm trying to get. As a matter of record, it might do.

You can go close with some faces, and some buildings, with wide angle lenses. Elliott Erwitt's marvelous shot of Buckminster Fuller from 14 inches away with a 21, uncentered and distorted, is a genius shot, incorporating his geodesic dome hundreds of feet below the helicopter.

For celebrating Fort Wayne I think your 50 and 35 work best.
 
An intelligent and thoughtful piece, thanks Chris.

I have recently come to the conclusion that as an amateur I do not need to get a photograph. If I have a nice walk in gorgeous landscape, the photo is a bonus. Consequently I've pared my kit for trips out on to Dartmoor to a Rollei 35S with that lovely Sonnar. It weighs 300g. I can then happily walk with it in my pocket, and can carry what is really necessary for this terrain: map, water, food and waterproofing. Landscapes have this habit of not being amenable to walk zooming anyway - they go up and down, there might be a river or a cliff or indeed a cow in the way. The light may not at that point be perfect, or the clouds either too dense or too few. Rather than worry about taking all the lenses I might need, and have to cart them around in hope, I make a mental note of a shot and if it's worth it, I might return with the necessary kit at a later date. Or I might not.
 
Photography, like life, is really about a series of compromises. Or to put it in another way - different strokes for different folks.

Those of us who have lived long enough to see and experience the many changes in photography over the decades (in my case, 1961-2020) fondly remember the era when we were younger and everything cost two and six - except zoom lenses.

I made do with TLRs in the '60s, initially Yashicas and from 1966, a Rollei which cost me five months' salary to buy on what we called "the never never" (lay-by). I recall the first zoom lenses I saw, a fellow news photog had a Nikon F which we all lusted after but couldn't afford and TWO of those optical beasts, first a 43-86 (of which the less said the better) and then an 80-200 which he used for sports shoots.

The rest of us somehow got by with our TLRs and their 'standard' 75mm or 80mm lenses which had to do us for all our general photography but meant stepping back quite a bit to take any images even vaguely reminiscent of anything wide angle. In the news trade I didn't really bother with minor discrepancies like corners of garages poking out of the edges of my shots or trees growing out of roofs. I just took the damn shots and souped my film in Dektol to get finished prints in time for the late evening news room closing. Color meant Ektachrome or Anscochrome which had to be sent away for processing and usually took two weeks for negatives and small square prints to be returned. I sort of knew about Rollei telephoto and wide angle cameras, which would have cost me the earth and the moon to buy. Hence the foot work.

I had a great time back then and still have many memories of news shoots, portraits, weddings, family social events, shots of long-deceased pets, and yes, even houses with garages in the edges and trees poking out of roofs. I treasure the few images I have left of my family's home and grandparents' farm. All taken with my Yashicas and the Rollei.

My early photography taught me frugality - or maybe 'minimalism' is a better term.

Times have changed and now we can all revel in the luxury of buying either zooms or primes according to which ever take our fancy. I still use my Rollei but I have a few Nikon zooms, yet I often make do with a 35mm or 28mm on a D700 or D800 - these lenses give me all I want from my images. 'Zoom' to me is mostly a veneable 28-85 which got fairly negative reviews when it came out but gives me sharp shots. For me, needs must.

Other than to respectfully but firmly disagree with Chris's summing up of foot-zooming as "dumb", I entirely (well, 99%) agree with his comments and his supporting images.
 
Going back.....way back before the short zoom became the standard kit lens sold with a 35mm SLR folks would would purchase the camera with a ‘normal’ 50 to 58mm lens. If they were new to photography usually one of the first questions I got asked was ‘what lens should I buy next?’
I’d tell them not to be in a hurry, but work with the 50 for a few months. If durning that time you often found yourself needing to back up to get more in the frame then get a 35 or a 28.
If you found you were often moving closer (this didn’t seem to be the case with most folks) then go for a 100 to 135.
So.....’zooming with their feet’ at least helped them to determine what was the next most logical lens purchase.

Of course, after 35mm SLR’s started to typically be offered with those horrible little kit zooms and sales would push them to buy a 80-200 consumer zoom at the same time that too often wound up as the only lenses they ever owned or used.
 
"Zooming With Your Feet" Is Dumb

In 2020 every time I hear the word zoom I think of online meetings running overtime (Can you hear me? You are on mute. How about now? Wait ... my wifi just dropped out).
 
Zoom lenses are so last decade ... zoom by pixel cropping is the new wave.
Coupled with the equivalent of the lens turret - close mounted lens/sensor switching, for ultra wide, wide and long standard on the latest phones.
 
I think using any sort of video conferencing service with your feet, when your hands are actually an option, is inadvisable.
 
As I age I keep reducing my kit. For the last few years I used my D810 + 24-120 zoom for images I intended to sell for stock. It had wonderful coverage of all the focal length I cared about.

I just sold it

As I age further I don’t care what sells. Now, what’s important is pleasure in working and deriving some satisfaction from the images produced. The Leica and a few primes are all that’s needed.

The prime consideration of photography and the resultant picture is framing. What you frame iis more important than how you framed it.
 
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