594 - Warning: Junk Ahead

Every once in a while there is a new piece of equipment in my bag, this time it is a fisheye (Nikon 10.5mm/2.8), and just as always it will take me a while to come to grips with it. Only that this time it could take longer 🙂

Let’s see: what have I learned today?

• There are too many things on the streets. This lens has such a wide angle, that you almost always include something that you don’t want. Lesson: This lens is not for bicycles.


• Shooting architecture with a wide angle lens, I frequently try to let lines run into corners. Two is easy, three is common, four are the Holy Grail. Try that with a fisheye! It’s funny. Lesson: This lens requires new aesthetics.


• Many of my images these last six months were taken with the Sigma 70/2.8, and I have found 70 mm (which is equivalent to 105 mm on my camera) to be a very useful focal length for a walk-around lens. Most of the time I am on well known territory and frequently I concentrate on details. A short telephoto lens is ideal for that, and today in the park it would have been ideal for this tiny furry animal that crossed my way, mistaking my camera for a nut. The fisheye was not ideal. Lesson: this lens is not for squirrels.


• Although it was warm, light in the park of the imperial castle of Schönbrunn was rather flat. Often in such light I use a polarizer. Not today. Lesson: This is not a lens for situations when you need to use a filter.


• I tried some landscape images, and on the plus side, there was hardly any problem to get everything into the image. On the other side, it was hardly possible to NOT get everything into the image. Lesson: This is not a typical landscape lens.


• Having so much in the image hugely increases the chance to have something very bright and something very dark, meaning that most of the time you have extreme contrasts. Lesson: This lens is not for harsh light.

I’ll let you know when I’ve found out what it really is for. In the meantime please be warned: To master this lens, I’ll have to use it. Often. There may be junk ahead.

The Song of the Day is “Warning” from the 2000 Green Day album “Warning”. See them perform live on YouTube.