Improving your photography often involves mastering composition by limiting yourself to a single or narrow range of focal lengths. Committing to a consistent focal length encourages you to engage more actively with your subject and surroundings, transforming how you see potential photographs.
Coming to you from Rick Bebbington, this thoughtful video shares insights from his recent trip to Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, using the Voigtländer 40mm f/1.2 lens. Bebbington typically shoots at 35mm, a focal length he finds naturally aligns with how we see the world, but curiosity drew him to experiment slightly longer, at 40mm. Despite receiving advice against purchasing this lens, he decided to give it a chance, driven by an impulse to explore something new. Through various shots—ranging from an abandoned caravan in a sweeping landscape to intricate textures of sand dunes—he demonstrates how the slight focal length shift impacted his approach to composing images. You’ll find this helpful because it illustrates the tangible difference even minor focal length changes can make in your photography.
Beyond focal length, Bebbington emphasizes how manually focusing with this compact, wide-aperture lens shaped his experience. He openly shares his initial apprehensions about potential chromatic aberrations, which turned out minimal, adding subtle character rather than detracting from the image quality. He pairs the lens with a 1/8 Mist filter, which softens highlights and imparts a slight cinematic glow. This combination, according to Bebbington, introduces imperfections that give his photos depth and authenticity, moving away from overly sharp, digital precision. It's valuable insight for anyone interested in adding more character to their images or experimenting with less conventional, manual lenses.
Throughout his journey across Scotland's islands, Bebbington discovered how focusing manually heightened his involvement in each photograph. He shares detailed accounts of struggling initially with framing elements—like rapidly changing weather and fleeting light—but explains how these challenges actually helped sharpen his skills. Particularly memorable are his experiences with changing lighting conditions, from golden-hour dunes to storm-lit bus stops. His efforts to capture these varied conditions illustrate a critical photography principle: learning to anticipate and react swiftly to evolving circumstances. He also touches on focal length selection in landscape photography, addressing limitations like difficulty maintaining front-to-back sharpness at close distances. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Bebbington.
I’m not wasting my time by watching this or reading a single word in it. But I could not think of a worse piece of advice to tell anyone getting into any photography genre. You prime lenses nerds are something else.