Using my new Olympus 9-18 I finally feel it again, the joy of using an ultra-wide lens. OK, it’s not as hyper-ultra as others, but if you forget about the idea of getting everything in focus from the nearest foreground to the farthest background, if you just come in a little closer than usual, you see that you can get all the weird wide-angle distortions that you may crave for.
Take this image for example. I’ve set the camera down on the carpet in this church, focused pretty far away, and although the immediate foreground is not sharp, the effect of the monstrously enlarged pattern playing off of the gothic choir and the baroque ornaments compensates completely.
I’ve taken the image to B&W, simply because the red carpet was overwhelming the background. Apropos background, the background is already beginning to fade out of focus, but the result is still acceptable due to the smaller sensor’s DOF advantage. Advantage? Yup! Shallow DOF is not everything 🙂
The Song of the Day is “Low, Low, Low” from the 1993 James album “Laid”. Hear it on YouTube.