most used focal length ?

[gokenin]

I am trying to figure out my kit for november and was wondering what are your most used focal lengths? I did a focal plot of my last trip and found that between 70-85 was my largest segment. So it made me curious about what other people tend to shot at. My kit is below always welcome suggestions about makeup of kit

 

[Master Mason]

To me at Disney large apeture is king. Having said that, I don't like to change lenses that much at Disney either, so I wouldn't be carrying around a bunch of primes either.

What are the fstop ranges on the 17-70, 28-105 24-135? I would pick the best one of those. I would also bring the 10-17 and the 75-300 but only carry them on days you expect to use the, probably one of the other on any given day.

Possibly the 85 prime as a dark ride and portrait type lens.

ETA: about 90% of my pictures are taken with a 24-70 f/2.8 at disney, I only put on the 70-200 for special reasons, such as shows or parades etc.

 

[YEKCIM]

I agree with MM about large apertures, not only at Disney, but in general. That said, most of my shots probably fall in the medium to long tele range (200-300mm) for selective focus / subject isolation.

~Ed

 

[boBQuincy]

On our September trip our most used focal lengths were 24 and 85/105. Strangely enough these are the short and long ends of our walkaround lenses (24-85 and 24-105). There were still plenty of images taken with the intermediate lengths but nowhere near the number at the ends.

To me this means we need both shorter and longer lenses, like 18-125 or use two lenses like 17-40 and 28-135. The other possibility is to use two primes, like 24 and 100 (or 135). The primes would apparently cover most of our uses, with fast apertures, great sharpness, and (relatively) low cost and light weight. Talk about retro!

 

[Groucho]

I can show you pretty easily what I use...

From my January 2007 trip:

From my April 2008 trip:

On the January trip, the big winner by far was my then-new 50mm F1.4. Next was my Zenitar 16mm fisheye. The rest was mostly spread around the kit 18-55mm and the 50-200mm lens.

On the April trip, the 31mm F1.8 was the top used. The 50mm is some of the 50mm F1.4 but probably also a lot of the 50-135mm F2.8 at 50mm, you also see a bunch of that lens at 135mm. 100mm (actually 105mm) was common for my Lester A Dine 105mm macro, followed slightly by my 10-17mm fisheye at max fishiness.

The 31mm is pretty close to a "normal" lens on my DSLR so that works quite well. I probably would have used my 28-75mm F2.8 more except that it just wasn't wide enough; if I was going to be stuck at 28mm, I'd rather use the 31mm for the superior quality and faster aperture.

I am tentatively planning at least one or two "M42 days" where I'll use nothing by old manual lenses. It'll be interesting to see how they compare, I've been pretty pleased so far when I've used them in day-to-day shooting.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

These are based on my keepers from my last trip. You can easily see the extremes of my lenses (17-40, 24-70, and 70-200). Keep in mind that I used a 1.3x camera rather than the more common 1.5x or 1.6x cameras.

As this chart shows, I am also a fan of wide apertures. It looks like the majority of my shots were taken at f/4 and lower.

 

[eeyorefanatic]

wow this is super helpful guys thank you very much for sharing.

I borrowed 2 lenses for this trip the 24-70 f/2.8and the 70-200 2.8. SO it looks like I will be pretty much well covered.

Im worried about the weight of carrying around the 70-200 2.8 all day but I really want it available for shows so I guess I will just consider it my work out for the week. lol

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I had originally planned to use my 70-200 only at AK. I found that I liked having it everywhere. I'll rarely go to the park without it now.

 

[webshark3]

Groucho and Mark! I had that tool for categorizing photos by focal length and lost it. What's the name of the tool again?

 

[handicap18]

Exposure Plot.

I went to post mine, but couldn't find where I put my '07 trip plot so I started a new one, then had do some things around the house and then DW went and shut down the computer. GRRRRRRR I'll do mine again tomorrow.

 

[boBQuincy]

An interesting article on Leica's vari-focal lenses:

http://www.edbuziak.workzsites.com/lenses_Leica_TriElmar_1.html

mentions that most people use their zoom lenses at one extreme or the other, rarely in between, thus the idea behind Leica's three-setting lens. For most of us it seems they called that one right, but is there any advantage of vari-focal over a zoom lens? Perhaps with fixed stops it can be made more accurately or lighter, I can't imagine the internal lenses would be much different.

 

[handicap18]

Here is my June '06 trip focal length graph. I used 3 different lenses: 18-70mm, 70-300mm, & 50mm f/1.8:

And here is my Nov/Dec '07 trip focal length graph. I mostly used 4 lenses: 18-135mm (which I ended up broke), 18-70mm, 30mm f/1.4 & 70-300mm; and 2 other lenes for less than a dozen shots each (50mm f/1.8 and 90m f/2.8).

This trip is skewed towards 30mm because early in the day at EPCOT is when my 18-135mm lens broke and I used the 30mm prime for the rest of the day. I also used the 30mm at lot during MVMCP and for night shots at DHS along with Spectro and other night shots at MK:

 

[webshark3]

Exposure Plot.

Thanks Handicap!