Living with a super wide angle lens

A few months back I bought the Zuiko ZD 7-14 f/4 to provide myself with a challenge (and because I quite fancied it as well). There have been plenty of reviews of this lens so i'm not going to repeat that trick here (it's been araound a fair while after all) although it is worth noting that:
- it's heavy
- that big front element looks scarily expensive when it gets close to things
- getting to grips with 7mm (14mm in full frame terms) is challenging.

The next thing to note is that although some consider a super wide angle to be a special effects lens, it's easy to get very bored, very quickly, with giving people (and pets) large noses. Ditto very wide angle landscapes where everything is too small to see. Then again - I wanted a challenge - or more to the point that's what I thought I wanted.

Truth is - whenever i went out to shoot it was always easier to fall back on a more familiar lens. So I hit on the idea (probably pinched it from a magazine if I'm honest) of restricting myself to just the wide angle - making it a point of pride not to resort to an 'easier lens' - and what a difference that makes.

Obviously that required me to exercise more will-power than previously, but I think it's paid off. It makes look at a subject and work out how to present it with a wide angle, and as a result I think (hope) that i'm beginning to get to grips with the creative potential.

 

e.g in this one which I took at a local vintage rally - the distortion has emphasised the almost comic flimsiness of the car. The result is a much closer representation of my reaction to the car than might have been provided by a more standard focal length.

Welcome to my blog

Hello and welcome to my first blog entry.
My name, as you can tell from the header, is Nigel Monckton. I've been a keen amateur photographer for more than 20 years, and thought it might be worth sharing some of my experiences to help those of you just setting out on the journey. I'm also a user of other peoples photos in my day job, so hopefully I'll have a few useful insights to share about that as well.
This blog is linked to my website, so you can see a range of my photos and judge for yourself if I'm worth listening to. (Obviously I hope the answer to that one is yes).

For the equipment-minded I shoot with Olympus gear – currently an E-1 with a 7-14, a 14-54, 50-200 and a 50mm macro. I'll be blogging my experiences with these as things progress – particularly the 7-14, which I've just bought and poses some interesting challenges.
Why Olympus? Well I started in 1982 with an OM-10, and although I had to change all my lenses to go digital, I've always been impressed with the quality and sheer usability of Oly gear and I saw no reason to change. I'm not one to knock other brands though – I'm sure their kit is fine – it's just I've never been tempted.

What do I like shooting? In truth, almost everything, although I'm less keen on people. I quite like the degree of control you get in the studio, and obviously I enjoy the chance to shoot new things while travelling – you can see the results of these preferences on my website. Just follow the link on this page.