UWA - Please Critique

[kenny]

Recently got a Tamron 10-24mm lens and was able to start playing around with it recently in Disney.

Please take a look and let me know anything I did right or more importantly that I can improve on. Love the quality and perspective the lens provides but want to learn to use it to its fullest potential.

Personally the Comptemporary and Hollywood Studio shots are my favorite.

TIA

 

[SrisonS]

Haven't played around with a UWA myself yet. But it seems that the beauty of them is the fact that you can force the perspective by getting a lot closer to your subject, while still maintaining a wide view. For some of these shots (of just the train station, SSE, some of the Castle pics) they don't seem to have that UWA look; to me anyway. They're not bad at all. They just look like normal wide shots. But the Contemporary shot is quite nice, and so is the 1st shot. I think that 1st one would be one of the first things I'd wanna shoot if I eventually get a UWA. But nice work!!

 

[DoleWhipDVC]

I just started shooting with a Tamron 10-24 over the summer and used Justin Miller's excellent tutorial on "10 tips on using a wide angle lens." He is great and his advice is great as well. I'm not sure how to get to the info from the Dis, but if you google the term, "Justin Miller wide angle lens tutorial" you'll find it out on the web. He has awesome insight and it helped me get cool captures immediately. Some examples of what I learned can be seen in the latest pages of the wide angle photo sharing thread.

Your shots look really nice already. Check out the tutorial and they'll get even more creative! Good luck

 

[zackiedawg]

Much appreciated, Whip! I had written that article for a friend's blog as a guest writer...the link is here:
http://stphoto.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/10-tips-on-using-a-wide-angle-lens/

Kenny - looks like you're already on your way with at least some of those tips, so you don't need too much guidance. The Contemporary shot is great, and I like the low angle Magic Kingdom shot with the words on the ground, and the streetcar shot coming out of the corner. The building shots all have that distortion effect from tilting up or down - sometimes that can be quite desirable and fun, and other time you may not want it. If you shoot buildings and don't want that distorted effect, just remember to keep the horizon level - turn the camera to portrait orientation if need be to get a taller building into the shot, or raise the camera a bit above your head. But sometimes I like that distorted wide angle style looking up at buildings too! A few of your shots do approach a 'standard' wide look - where all the subject is more distant, so you don't get as much of the 'ultrawide' look - and that can be fine too - that's a perk of having a UWA zoom that can go to 24mm, because if needed it can be used as a standard wide or even standard focal if needed.

In order to really get to know UWA lenses, I usually recommend leaving it in the widest setting, and trying to use it like a 10mm prime - work on getting right up close to subjects and use that huge depth of field to really push the UWA look. The better you become at shooting at 10mm, the better you become with the lens and start to really master that 'UWA' composition.

 

[DoleWhipDVC]

Much appreciated, Whip! I had written that article for a friend's blog as a guest writer...the link is here:
http://stphoto.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/10-tips-on-using-a-wide-angle-lens/

Hey, I meant every word!! Have you seen some of the shots I've posted to the wide angle thread? I'm not as good as you, but your info is helping me to get there. I'll be going back down for Christmas and will have my notebook with your tutorial in my luggage....

 

[zackiedawg]

I have - actually, I had been missing that thread for a while, and just went through and looked at it a couple days ago, because I finally had some new ones to add myself. You're definitely having fun with it - which is the key - the more you experiment and shoot with it, the better you understand how it works best.

 

[kenny]

thanks for the adivce. I agree that some of the shots are "standard" when I went to 24mm. 10mm just seemed to far/distant when taking the shot.

Will definitely have to practice with it more at 10mm like a prime as suggested. Great advice.

Thanks!