Woodlands and forests are smorgasbords of colors, textures, and interesting light. But, what is the best lens for capturing the details with the most variety and versatility?
I have always had a lingering attraction to woodlands for photography. Where I live in the U.K is tremendously dull for landscapes, with mostly flat land and few landmarks of note. Nevertheless, I am fortunate when it comes to woodland areas. In fact, I have recently moved to a house that has acres of woodlands on my doorstep and I utilize it for both running and for the testing of camera equipment.
If I were to create a woodlands photo book as Nigel Danson has, I would likely have to ask the question in the title: what is the best lens for that purpose? While I love capturing the intricate details with macro shots or low depth of field, capturing in the interesting formations with branches and aging trees is difficult to do with the same lens. I gravitate towards prime lenses and they are rarely wide enough to make a complete image of anything large. This is where I would likely reach for my 24-70mm as it has the best versatility in focal lengths.
What lens do you usually pick when it comes to woodland photography?
I gave up on Nigel Danson. Seems to be a nice guy, I liked his videos for a long time, but lately he's become too preachy. I've been doing landscape photography since before he was born and shot 5x4 for many years. He's a good photographer, no doubt about that, but brings nothing to the table for me, since he seems to be focused mainly on new photographers.
I still follow him but I pick and choose which videos to watch, which these days isn't very many of them.
I was that way for a while, but got so sick of the "How to focus" videos and others that I just gave up. I understand the pandemic has driven a lot of photographers to try to capture the "newbie" market, but I miss the days of "the beauty of the English countryside" (I'm currently in Arizona) and "it doesn't get any better than this", without the need to weed through shallow videos.
Yeah I hear you.
Follow Simon Baxter, First Man Photography,Henry Turner and Tom Heaton for some proper photography videos
Simon Baxter is one of the best right now. There is Simon Booth who is also good. Adam Gibbs (Canadian) is also an another good ones. Expressive Photography with Alistair Benn is another good one. Never could get into Henry, and Tom I felt was always negative, so I unsubscribed from him.
What I want is not "show me what to do or what tips to follow" ... ok, I know those are what the search mechanisms look for. Show me a photo (before or after) and tell me what your thought process was for that SPECIFIC image. I may not have thought to look at it in the same way (our thought processes are all the different). I don't need or want a checklist of TODOs.
Yeah fair enough, First Man Photography is probably a good channel for you, and he shoots in my area.