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Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Chicken or the egg? Could someone suggest key words to put in the search engine in order to find pet methods of matching lens to the shot composed in your mind.
Does one use their legs to zoom to a point selected by ... what? ... degrees, two right angled "L" composition aids, the Force young Skywalker, a coin toss?
This is a serious question: my wife and neighbors cast unfriendly looks when I'm out in the yard practicing with these L's. But the L's permit me to frame the shot's boundaries, and a compass reading on the boundaries gives the angle, and the angle can be matched to the lens. This seems the quickest, accurate way of getting the image on the ground glass.
Another method I've been using that is fast is to hold a tape measure out in front of me (both hands extended) with my thumbs on the boundaries of my composition i.e. the L and R vertices of a triangle (the third vertice being my eyes). I've marked the lens's length of the opposite side on the tape measure.
(The tape measure doubles when measuring reciprocity correction due to bellows extension)
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I move around until I find all the compnents I want into (our out of) the composition then decide how I want the foreground and background to relate. I move to that position and select the lens that fits the need. I don't try to complicate composition with formulas.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Always use a viewing (composing) card. If a string is attached with knots at appropriate distances it will not only frame the scene, but prescribe the appropriate lens.
If this solution was good enough for AA, it is good enough for me.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Dear emo supremo,
Cool name... :)
I use a viewing card too, but without the strings and knots. An 11X14 8ply matte board with a 4X5 hole cutout in the middle works well, where the matte board is black on both sides to minimize my confusion, and to block any extraneous background information. Age taught me how far away to hold it from my eyes for each lens. My board could be smaller, but I have never made it smaller.
I hope this helps...
jim k
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I use the 4x5/8x10 Visualizer sold by B&H, Adorama, et al. It's a black plastic card about 8x10" with a 4x5 cutout in the center and a tape with 4x5 and 8x10 focal lengths marked. You hold the tape up to your cheek (the one under your eye, not the other one), extend the Visualizer out with your other hand until you see the composition you want in the cutout, then check the tape to see what focal length lens iis needed for that composition. I've been using this method for years and have always liked it. I think the Visualizers cost about $10 - $15 if they're still sold.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Hmmm
Put in the first lens, see the ground glass…if it sucks, change it for another lens. ;)
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I use a homemade card. Basically, I took a piece card stock and cut out a 4x5" hole, and affixed a piece of string coming from just beneath the bottom of the cutout. Then for each lens, I held the card out at a distance to match the ground glass focused on some landscape scene. I place a small tab on the string that I could bite on, and labeled it the focal distance of that lens. So, in essence, the string will have as many tabs as you have lenses, and you can walk around looking at things through the card. When you find something, just pull the string to your teeth and pick the closest one, selecting a shorter focal distance if in-between, and crop.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I look for a scene that will fit inside my camera. If it's too big, I move back ...
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I usually use my thumbs and forefingers to form a rectangular shape, similar to the size of the format I am using, to scope out the scene.
When it looks right, I then set up my tripod, aim my camera, and mount a lens of a focal length that I feel will best cover the scene. If the image in the ground glass looks too large, or small, I replace the lens with one of more suitable focal length.
The ground glass tells the story. That's the place to crop.
If you don't have a choice of different focal length lenses, either move forward, backward, or don't shoot the scene.
I have a friend that shoots almost everything with a wide angle lens then crops the image in Photoshop. He has a variety of lenses to choose from, but he prefers to do it the easy way.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
After 30 years of using just a normal lens for each format as I went from 120 to 4x5 to 5x7 and now 8x10, I pretty much can place my pod where it should go. Perhaps with some fine-tuning, as Robert suggests, so I'll move until the image fits on the GG. I have never used a viewing card, but sometimes I use my fingers to frame a scene.
And sometimes the desired image never fits the GG -- changing focal length won't help, though perhaps changing focal length will help one find a different image. I have expanded my range of lenses for the 8x10, and generally can predict what will show up on the GG, except the long lenses. They never seem to be long as I think they are (19" and 24"), so they fool me sometimes. So it goes, perhaps I will get better with them as I use them more...no hurry. Ninety percent of my images are still made with my normal lens (300mm).
Vaughn
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SamReeves
Hmmm
Put in the first lens, see the ground glass…if it sucks, change it for another lens. ;)
For some reason whenever I tried that method the good light always disappeared while I was changing lenses. : - )
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Oh I do it the dangerous way, look at what I want take a picture from and now I just take the right lens out of my car put it on the camera and make the picture.
If I'm on the way by feet its not alway as easy, many times I had not the right lens in my Rucksack, so I got pissed on my self and look out for an other possiblity.
If I'm on the way for a payed shooting I take my Linhof viewfinder with me and I make some notes! But I very seldom use the viewfinder anymore, most of the time I just know what is needed.
I think after 20 years with LF it should like this!
Cheers Armin
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Viewing card, with string marked for each lens' focal length. my card is 5x7 with a 4x5 hole.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Hmmm, no one made any real disparaging remarks with their hand and/or fingers. Excellent for the craft! Here's another one that I used to use before the tape measure: put my thumbnaills face to face extend my arms and spread finger as wide as they'll go. When I have a 250 Ektar WF on the 8x10 I know that at infinity everything between the tips of my pinkies can fit the ground glass.
I like this method of using my anatomy because I ususally bring my hands along. Problem is the ink keeps washing off.
I wish there was a club to shoot with. It's really, really swell being able to associate with you Forumites.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I wish I had one of these.
Unfortunately, my budget doesn't allow for this right now.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vlad Soare
I wish I had one of
these.
Unfortunately, my budget doesn't allow for this right now.
Buy one of the inexpensive Chinese versions with zoom and ability to switch masks... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=330393738197
Or a director's viewfinder like this... http://cgi.ebay.com/Directors-Viewfi...item2a03be1ff5
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Although there are times I wish I had a viewing card, I simply look at the scene and can decide what lens I'm going to use. It's not too hard when I only have 5 lenses and I can narrow it down pretty quick without any tools or gadgets by determining if I want wide angle, normal or long. Years of shooting the same focal lengths helps too and there is something to be said about an educated/experienced guess. Every once in a while I'll have to zoom in and out with my legs if there's room.... but for the most part I can pull out the lens I need without too much thought.
The less I have to think about, the more I can enjoy the moment...
Lon
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lon Overacker
Although there are times I wish I had a viewing card, I simply look at the scene and can decide what lens I'm going to use. It's not too hard when I only have 5 lenses and I can narrow it down pretty quick without any tools or gadgets by determining if I want wide angle, normal or long. Years of shooting the same focal lengths helps too and there is something to be said about an educated/experienced guess. Every once in a while I'll have to zoom in and out with my legs if there's room.... but for the most part I can pull out the lens I need without too much thought.
The less I have to think about, the more I can enjoy the moment...
Lon
I agree. My experience is that I can choose a lens without much thought. That comes after repetition. I have the Zone VI viewing frame/filter but rarely use it today.
Donald Miller
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Right on, Van, if one needs a little help composing then a director's zoom finder with adjustable mask is the way to go. See post #16 for links to a decent one and for a cheap zoom viewfinder alternative.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Van Camper
Guessing can cause you to miss your shot.
So can fooling around with a tool just to select your lens. If time is of the essence and you could miss your shot, then your best friend is usually experience. Hopefully you would agree that there is a difference between pure "guessing" and an "educated or experienced guess." Or "repetition" as Donald mentioned. But even more basic than that is for me personally, I have 5 lenses. Am I "guessing" if I know that I want the 300 instead of the 75? Hopefully I already know whether I'm going wide or long. So am I really guessing when I only have 5 lenses to choose from?
I also said there are many times that I wish I had a viewing tool/aid. I think it would be valuable. I just happen to be comfortable without one and the OP was just asking folks what their method for choosing was. We all know that for the most part LF is a slow and contemplative process right? So many times we find ourselves wandering around an area looking for comps and having a viewer would be quite helpful. For some, it may work just as well just using "seeing" the scene and visualizing what a 210 would look like. No biggie.
Lon
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I just close one eye and I can see how it's going to look represented in 2 dimension. Then I can guess how much I will zoom with my feet, or which lens I will use.
I can use the removable optical finder that attaches to the top of my speed graphic, but I generally don't and leave it in place.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I use the Linhof 45 Multifocus Viewfinder that Vlad wished he had. Expensive way to do it perhaps... but it came with the camera. Saves considerable time in not only choosing a lens but also in choosing exact locations in which to set up and whether the image works better in vertical or horizontal.
Negative to having one is that when shooting with others that use fingers, guesswork, or cardboard cut-outs one finds themself waiting for the viewfinder-less to finish with it.
Awfully expensive to buy new, but can be had used for $400-$600 for the new version and less for the older. Honestly one of the best "accessories" to be in a kit.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Hey Glenn.
If that expensive Linhof viewer hadn't come with your camera, and you had never used one of those accessories before, would you have purchased it anyhow?
I've been with you when you walked about a scene peering through that Linhof viewer, and never even bothering to set up your camera. The rest of us came away with a couple of very nice shots of the scene after framing it with our fingers.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Gem:
a) Yes, I would've purchased one (no doubt used).
b) The use of the viewer has never prevented taking a photo wanted, except to indicate that setting up a camera was a waste of time and film, in my personal opinion.
c) As far as "nice shots" being missed... what is or what is not an image one desires to capture is a very subjective matter.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Robert Hughes
I look for a scene that will fit inside my camera. If it's too big, I move back ...
:)
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I wonder if Ansel Adams used an optical view finder to compose his photos.
Anybody know?
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I have a 5x7 black mat board with a 4x5 hole cut out. I tied a string to it and marked off my focal lengths with a sharpie. The string is a loop so I can hang the thing around my head. Most of the time I have it with me, though sometimes I don't. I like using it because it lets me practice composing even when I don't want to photograph something. I find it useful, but it's not a crutch and I don't always use it.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brian Ellis
For some reason whenever I tried that method the good light always disappeared while I was changing lenses. : - )
Aww c'mon, you gotta be faster than that at sunset! :p J/K
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
anchored
I use the Linhof 45 Multifocus Viewfinder that Vlad wished he had. Expensive way to do it perhaps... but it came with the camera. Saves considerable time in not only choosing a lens but also in choosing exact locations in which to set up and whether the image works better in vertical or horizontal.
Negative to having one is that when shooting with others that use fingers, guesswork, or cardboard cut-outs one finds themself waiting for the viewfinder-less to finish with it.
Awfully expensive to buy new, but can be had used for $400-$600 for the new version and less for the older. Honestly one of the best "accessories" to be in a kit.
I owned the new version, used it for about six months, sold it, and went back to the viewing card I mentioned in a previous post. I never found a convenient way of carrying it since I couldn't store it on my camera in my back pack. It was fairly big and bulky, too bulky to wear around your neck or on your belt. It also took longer to get on the camera and to the right point for the desired composition than the viewing card because my hand had to be in an awkward position to turn the ring or knob that moved it back and forth. I just found it inconvenient and time-consuming to use compared to a card, not to mention vastly more expensive. I actually thought just from looking at pictures that the older version might have been easier to use. But they're nice instruments and I can see why some would like them especially if they had never used anything else.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
This is the third time I've posted this - a year or two ago and a few weeks ago - it works perfectly - and is very cheap:
http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=41735
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I just do it - intuively grab a lens, compose the shot, and if it's fishy either try another
lens or give up. I'm very, very nickpicky about composition; and if it doesn't look right
on the groundglass, I don't know what good some handheld cropping gadget will do.
This doesn't mean my final shot is exactly what I at first imagined, however - I often
readjust the camera and explore around through the ground glass itself before reaching
for film. Might take 30 seconds, or might take half an hour!
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Before using a viewing card or rangefinder, you need to think about how you want to represent the spatial relationship between objects, and also think angle of view of foreground elements vs. angle of view of the background elements. If you want to exaggerate the near/far spatial relationships, or you want to have a wider angle of view in the background elements than foreground, then you want a wide angle lens and should move to a position that allows for the appropriate composition (do you want that boulder to loom and dominate the foreground or do you want to diminish its presence? Do you want the faraway mountain range to be majestic or subtle?). If you want to compress the near/far spatial relationship, or narrow the angle of view of the background elements, then you need a longer focal length lens., and you should move to a position that allows for that composition.
Then you can take out your viewing card or rangefinder.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
While on a road trip a few years back I stopped in Ink Jet Arts in Salt Lake City and purchased all their remaining 6x7 cardboard Blair mounts for mounting 6x7 transparencies. I also bought some 4x5 Blair mounts. Simply take your camera to an open space with a field of view that encompasses all your lens and determine how many fingers the mount must be held in front of you to encompass the same field of view as seen thru the lens. For example, 6 fingers for my 150mm Rodenstock lens holding the mount between the thumb and index finger of the left hand and all 5 fingers of the right lined-up and touching the left thumb.
Well, they don't make Blair mounts anymore (I bought the last ones) but you can cut out a 4x5 opening in heavy matt board and keep it in your pack. Be sure to write the results in permanent ink on the side of the mount.
Somewhat tacky, I guess, but it's a heck cheaper and lighter than a Universal Linhoff finder.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Save your money and just make yourself a viewing frame. I use a 4x5 inch cutout in white matt board. I use the 4x5 "viewer" when out with the 8x10 too. I just double the focal length. I find it very useful in isolating compositions as well. Pardon me, I've had too much Sherry... how come there's no drunk smiley face??
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I usually scratch my head for a second or two, then do a dance. After the dance, I always know which lens it is...
In all seriousness though, I have to agree with Greg. I usually spend a good amount of time just staring at the scene, and deciding what about it I find interesting or what draws my eye. Sometimes the "big picture" is what I find most interesting, other times one small detail. Once I've decided what I want to include/exclude, and what I want the spatial relationships to be I'll reach for the framing card, but I usually have a pretty good idea of which lens is going to do the trick.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Emo, this question never gets old. There are several good ways to turn your mental image into a virtual image into a film image. Cheapest (a card in your format) to elegant (a Linhof viewfinder). Use the method that doesn't get in the way and practice, practice, practice. After about forty years of the aforementioned practice you can just walk to the exact spot and mount the right optic.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I've been thinking of using a small ~7" ultra-thin digital photo frame with an external battery and mini USB input together with a cheap P-&-S camera that accepts W/A or tele adapters as needed to simulate the FL of the lenses I'm using for film. One could use a transparent mask with lines placed over the photo frame to show different aspect ratios. There are digital cameras that show real-time images while one composes. Just watch the 7" screen while composing and shoot. If you don't like what you see then shoot another until you get it just right. Set up the 8x10 and take the shot. Of course, the light may be gone by then. :D
Think of it as "chimping" on steroids for LF photographers. :)
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
pocketfulladoubles
I use a homemade card. Basically, I took a piece card stock and cut out a 4x5" hole, and affixed a piece of string coming from just beneath the bottom of the cutout. Then for each lens, I held the card out at a distance to match the ground glass focused on some landscape scene. I place a small tab on the string that I could bite on, and labeled it the focal distance of that lens. So, in essence, the string will have as many tabs as you have lenses, and you can walk around looking at things through the card. When you find something, just pull the string to your teeth and pick the closest one, selecting a shorter focal distance if in-between, and crop.
I know this is an older thread, but I didn't want to start a new one and the quote above is part of what I'm looking for. When making your own and marking the string, what type of scene do you focus on and how far away? Do you focus on something at close to infinity or something closer?
I frequently am out somewhere without a camera and want to get an idea of whether the scene will work with one of my lenses (or the lens, depending on the camera). I know experience will help, but I only have about 3 years of LF so far. I'm also considering the iPhone app "Viewfinder Pro" but it's $20 and a piece of mat board is cheaper (though I nearly always have the phone with me anyway).
Thanks!
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
I started out using a grey card with a 4x5 hole in it and a string attached. I now use Viewfinder Pro.
The card with the hole and string really sucks in comparison.
The only time I have used the grey card with the hole since getting the app was as a grey card. :p
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Scott Walker
I started out using a grey card with a 4x5 hole in it and a string attached. I now use Viewfinder Pro.
The card with the hole and string really sucks in comparison.
The only time I have used the grey card with the hole since getting the app was as a grey card. :p
Good to know. Maybe it'll be worth the $20 then. Thanks!
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SamReeves
Hmmm
Put in the first lens, see the ground glass…if it sucks, change it for another lens. ;)
Sounds right to me.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
The ground glass is truth.
If the view on the gg doesn't match your creative vision you must change the lens or change your position.
shooting a scene with the intention to crop to your desired compositionis also a valid technique, as is stiching multiple shots.
No system or application beats experience. Know your gear. Know what it is capable of (and what the limitations are) and visualize the images your kit can capture well.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
With a 10", 14" & 19" lens in the kit, I've got a one in three chance of nailing it first time around, but thinking to myself wide, normal or long? Increases the odds I'll pick the correct focal length for what I'm after:)
When I only had one lens, this was no problem!:rolleyes:
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
emo supremo
Chicken or the egg? Could someone suggest key words to put in the search engine in order to find pet methods of matching lens to the shot composed in your mind.
Does one use their legs to zoom to a point selected by ... what? ... degrees, two right angled "L" composition aids, the Force young Skywalker, a coin toss?
This is a serious question: my wife and neighbors cast unfriendly looks when I'm out in the yard practicing with these L's. But the L's permit me to frame the shot's boundaries, and a compass reading on the boundaries gives the angle, and the angle can be matched to the lens. This seems the quickest, accurate way of getting the image on the ground glass.
Another method I've been using that is fast is to hold a tape measure out in front of me (both hands extended) with my thumbs on the boundaries of my composition i.e. the L and R vertices of a triangle (the third vertice being my eyes). I've marked the lens's length of the opposite side on the tape measure.
(The tape measure doubles when measuring reciprocity correction due to bellows extension)
I look at the scene. Then I choose the lens to match what I want on the film. Sometimes I move. Sometimes I have only the one lens with me, in which case I choose the scene to match the equipment I have, moving if neccesary.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Method, shmethod.
IMO, composition/viewing/framing devices indicate a distinct lack of experience and/or aesthetics (i.e., "seeing") of landscape composition.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ROL
Method, shmethod.
IMO, composition/viewing/framing devices indicate a distinct lack of experience and/or aesthetics (i.e., "seeing") of landscape composition.
How about photographing the scene with a digital camera, then checking the composition on the screen...;)
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
Card board with a 4x5 cut out. Can't beat that.
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
first..I find something I want to photograph... then I walk forward and back..sometimes closing one eye..until I get the perspective I want - that is where I plant my tripod
next..I put on a lens that will capture the amount of scene I want to photograph - I try to not move forward, for instance if I don't have a long enough lens...this would only mess up the perspective
I used to walk around with a cropping deal ..but I can do it just as well without
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Re: Your method for matching lens to landscape composition
If you only use 1 lens then you get pretty good at just looking and knowing what works for you, and where you need to put the camera. You dont have to go out with an arsenal ready to make every possible picture.