Photography experiment

In the never-ending quest to improve my photography, I did a little exercise while we were in Burgundy. No, not jumping jacks. I only used one lens (with one minor exception). I have four lenses for the camera: an 18-55mm zoom (which is the lens I use most often), a 70-300mm zoom for long shots, a fixed 100mm macro for close-ups, and a fixed 50mm/f1.4 lens. On one of the online photography sites I read, the author talked about prime (fixed) lenses and why she prefers them to zooms. For instance, she noted that fixed lenses often have better quality glass because there is less of it in the lens. Zoom lenses force light through several layers of glass and sometimes a fixed lens produces sharper, better quality images. She also noted that fixed lenses can have wider apertures allowing for more versatility in low-light situations. My 50mm prime, with it's maximum f1.4 aperture, is the widest of the four lenses I've got. The author suggested forcing yourself to use just a prime lens for a period of time to get a feel for it, so that's what I did on this trip.

La Fosse Dionne, Tonnerre, Burgundy.

All of the photos I'm posting from our Burgundy trip were made with the 50mm prime lens. It was a bit of a challenge as I'm very used to being able to frame a photo by zooming in and out, and I can get wide photos in tight spaces with the 18mm wide angle; 50mm is not a very wide angle. With a fixed lens, zooming has to be done on foot, walking toward or away from the subject to frame it the way you want it, and that is not always possible in narrow streets, inside buildings, or at scenic overlooks.

Today's picture was taken in the town of Tonnerre at the site of a source, or spring, called la Fosse Dionne. A circular enclosure was built around the spring in the 18th century to serve as the town's public laundry. The spring and its enclosure are nestled tightly in the old neighborhood with buildings all around, so getting back for a long/wide shot was not at all possible. This image was the best that I could do with the 50mm lens. One of the points of the exercise is the challenge to take an interesting shot without relying on the zoom. In this case, I tried to capture the feel of the spring and its circular enclosure without being able to get it all into the frame.

Ken used his wide-angle zoom and got some really nice shots of the whole place. He'll probably post some of them on his blog soon.