Rapid framing with a walk-around lens: you do or you don't? What is your stratagem?

I realized that I had not posted the orginal uncropped shot! So I now have the honest truth! When one is moving fast with others, taking pictures can be annoying for everyone. So how does one not lose the shot and one's companions who want to move and not loiter at every flower or rusted lock! My solution is to frame wide and shoot fast. Sometimes merely aiming as one passes!

I just caught a wasp visiting some flowers as I was walking by. Framing as one strolls is always a challenge, especially with a single walk-around 50mm lens!


Canon 5D 50 1.2L f4.5 1/800 sec

I tried two crops. First a central vertical crop to get a sense of movement.


Canon 5D 50 1.2L

Then a portion of that and in horizontal format, that's supposed to be more peaceful:



However in the end, the original vertical crop idea seems best as it gives more height of flowers for the wasp to have wandered in from. I had the feeling that the wasp had actually worked it's way up and that seemed more active. The horizontal picture seemed too static.

So do you shoot on the fly? So do you stop enough to get the optimal framing? Is it anything like the format you shot?

Asher

Hi Asher,

Not in company, but these were shot from the hip Sometimes I get lucky!! Both full frame.

To be honest, I find it difficult taking pictures when I'm with other people. I often carry a camera and make a few shots, but either want for time or focus really.

Mike

Mike, It's interesting that in the first shot you caught 3 strong and promineent black tubular structures with may lesser ones.

The tie up stanchion on the lower left, the single visible leg and the long diagonal railing. There is also a well focused square paving pattern and it's as if the leg is about to go through a "hop-skotch" routine of hopping from square to square!

Had you really not acted fast, this would havew been missed and there is some unity to this composition.

Asher

Travel and shoot

I frequently shoot when I am on a tour and there are other people around. The poor tour guides just chat away while I am five feet back of the crowd and I often have to ask if I missed anything important - like what time to be back at the van to leave. Sometimes I am framing while they speak because they stop to talk about something. Sometimes they are just walking to a destination. I stop and they go ahead. I might have to run to catch up. If it's really a photogenic place, I will ask when and where to meet back - but that is pretty rare that I do that. Sometimes I use the 50 1.2 and other times I have the 24-105 or 24-70 on camera. I can change that lens one handed now. I have a full gallery of those kinds of images - here is one:..

rapid framing -- sometimes you get lucky

This one meets all my tests for a crowd shot -- almost everyone's face is lit and facing the camera, there's a center of action, the frame is packed -- I'd love to say that I framed it in the little optical viewfinder of my GR-D2, sensed the moment, and captured it with sure timing.



But I didn't. I held the camera at half arm's length, above my head as the charity raffle was reaching its climax, didn't even look at the LCD, and shot a few when the action seemed most interesting. The rest of the edited shoot is here.

scott

I've trained myself to instinctively put the subject at the right or left of the frame, or angle the camera, anything to break up the conventional shot, so if I have to frame quickly, I won't end up with a centered subject.

This is easy with the Nikon D300. I just set the focus areas off center when I start out.

FYI,

She looks more like a honey bee (Apis mellifera) than a wasp. Albeit, I am not certain as the coloring on her thorax segments is different which means that she is possibly another species. But her lack of the wasp waist would lead me to think she is a bee.

a thought,

Sean

Thanks Sean! Will Thompson also thought it was a bee. I'm thinking og fatter bees. This one is more fusiform. So where is the wasp waist?

Asher

Wasp Waist

Asher Kelman said:

So where is the wasp waist?

Click to expand...

This is a good example of a wasp waist shape (think of a tight laced corset on a lady curving in like an hour glass):


Albeit, the photo is not very good for anything but species identification due to the 2nd rate DoF. But it does show the coloring of the thorax, vein details in the out wings, and the shape of the spikes on the middle and rear legs. The wasp waist is not an actual indicator of whether a species is a bee or a wasp AFAIK, but I could be wrong.

thanks,

Sean

Yup,

In comparison to my beautiful little fellow, yours looks like a mean fellow that belongs in some jungle somewhere! I wouldn't not trust this guy, not for a second! It's a wonder the thing can fly with such greasy looking wings!

Asher

Here's another:





I don't think I cropped this one, but I shot from the hip. I think off focus suits the subject.

I have to do the "rapid-framing" or "trust-to-luck-framing" fairly often, especially in the hubbub that surrounds an important match like a state championship. There's nothing quite like the fish for this...


Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

Asher Kelman said:

In comparison to my beautiful little fellow, yours looks like a mean fellow that belongs in some jungle somewhere! I wouldn't not trust this guy, not for a second! It's a wonder the thing can fly with such greasy looking wings!

Click to expand...

She (note that within Hymenoptera the males of social species tend to be worthless) is a European Paper Wasp, Polistes dominunulus, and they are relatively innocuous more likely to make an attack motion (the flying maneuver) than to actually sting (which makes them no less scary with your lens 15 cm away from a nest and a relatively safe subject to work with). The wings them selves are just glossy, not greasy.

As for the subject at hand, why not just focus and recompose. I do this all the time with grab shots except when DoF is critical. i.e.,


some thoughts,

Sean

I cropped this a little in photoshop.

shooting the shooters

One of the things I like to do, in imitation of Cartier Bresson, is to find a place that makes a good "set" and secrete myself nearby. I then zone focus, and waiting for somebody to walk into the set.

I got this from looking at CB photos, like that one in the village in Greece, where he catches a young girls shadow as it moves up the stairs against the white wall. Brilliant photo.

Often what I do when I have my camera and I'm with other people not interested in photography at the moment is I only take my D70 which is modified for IR, I put a 20mm or 28mm manual focus lens and an IR filter on the lens so even if I wanted to frame with the viewfinder I can not (well i use a flip down filter holder just incase I really need to compose something.)

Composition is blind and by instinct (read guessing) and focus by distance, this way I can not possibly slow down the group and get the occasional "hey buddy, don't forget to take off your lens cap" ;-)



This picture is before I modified the camera hence the longish shutter speed, the ground steady the shot. Hoya R72.