A 35 mm prime has made me think more carefully about where I stand and what belongs in the frame. That's liberating in a city, but sometimes I can't move closer to a subject or back away from a wall. I don't want to romanticize constraints when a zoom would simply get the shot. For travel, when does a prime lens push you creatively, and when is it just an unnecessary limitation?
Deciding when a prime lens is liberating and when it is simply limiting
- photography
- prime
- lens
- liberating
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3 replies
A prime pushes you when you already know what you want from the scene. It gets annoying when travel means “I can’t physically move and the s...
A prime pushes you when you already know what you want from the scene. It gets annoying when travel means “I can’t physically move and the shot still needs a different framing,” which is most of travel.
I’d separate “creative constraint” from “bad tool choice.” A 35 is great until the building across the street is too close and you need 24, or the market stall is too crowded and you need 50.
Exactly. A prime is liberating when the choice was yours, not when the alley is literally behind you. Then it’s just you negotiating with th...