What Your Favorite Lens Says About Your Personality

Some landscape photographers enjoy getting out into nature by themselves and away from others—the introvert. Other landscape photographers enjoy heading out with others and carrying the conversation—the extrovert. Did you know you can tell which personality you are by your favorite lens?

While it often seems that introverted landscape photographers dominate the hobby, there are certainly landscape photographers who enjoy striking up conversations, being the life of the camera club, or always being ready to head out with others on photo trips. What if we could predict which personality type a photographer is by asking what their favorite lens is?

In this video, Mark Denney shows us how to search Lightroom’s metadata to find our favorite focal length or lens. Once we have found our most commonly used lens, he discusses how this is a clue to how you, as a photographer, see the world.

Denney goes on to theorize that one can then classify one's personality type—extrovert or introvert—based on how one sees the world as a photographer. Denney says that from his informal polling, the correlation between favorite lens or focal length and personality type is fairly accurate in his experience.

After I watched the video, I thought about my favorite lens or most common focal length. The correlation also holds true for me. How about you? Does your favorite lens match your personality type?

Jeffrey Tadlock's picture

Jeffrey Tadlock is an Ohio-based landscape photographer with frequent travels regionally and within the US to explore various landscapes. Jeffrey enjoys the process and experience of capturing images as much as the final image itself.

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6 Comments

Sorry. Wrong.
I use shorter focal lengths almost exclusively.I don't really have a lens longer than my 100 Makro. My 85mm is used only sporadically. It is usually 50mm and shorter, with the 24/25mm lens pretty much my favorite. I am in no way an extrovert. Quite the opposite.
Sorry. It is all just B.S.

When I started landscape photography, I shot with wider focal lengths, but I've gravitated to longer focal lengths now - it it matches up pretty well for me. Even in portrait work, I tend towards longer focal lengths as well - so I fit into the mold!

Didn't figure we all would! Still fun!

I at 70+ have never heard of the personality terms ever until checking the the news on Google News and every day there was and is questions about what you prefer in life. And another item is the pictures/drawing/paintings where the question is can you find something or what do you see first or what I like is can you see the numbers or subject under a heavily lined forefront.
You are kinda young for this one but somewhere around the late 70's and 80's there were prints you could buy in many art stores or variety stores with visual prints and and other things like physical items you put together kind like the today's famous rubik's cube and how fast you can do it or the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store peg teaser. But the Visual prints were of different colors with many many lines but underneath was an image of different things like the Mona Lisa or a dog or a landscape BUT BUT you had to kinda squint your eyes but mainly kind of in your mind change your focal point to see behind the lines.
I wear glasses since about 7 years but have broken several so a trick is to put your thumb and index finger together and put close to one of your eyes and you will see very clearly small area but you can find your way somewhere if needed kind like on rifles with a peep sight near the rear and no matter your visual problems you will see the target like a deer or rabbit clearly. when I joined the Navy I got new glasses always two pair but my corrected vision was 20/10 some times 20/05 like Chuck Yeager.
But in all the articles on Google News they ask can you see the numbers behind the blurry stuff but without even opening I could see all, kinda boring after awhile. The what do you see first stuff also boring because I see all at first glance.
The point of mentioning all this is what makes a great photographer both at capture and the editing is how sharp your vision both near and far.
Now as far as introvert or extravert I found I am an extreme Lone Wolf and looking back at my life even in the Navy I may have had only one friend but not for hanging out but also a loner even on a ship with 6,000+ people.
Now for your test of a lens mostly used either prime or telephoto that is really about the genre really. But it is more the one to choose for the most you are pulled to and what will cover your options. Wide most will say 24mm but then the 16mm to 35mm. My best over all and least mentioned for sharpness is the FE 24-240mm and in crop APS-C mode you get 36-360mm sort of but yes a 10x magnification also while everyone is falling in love with the new 300mm f/2.8 that will empty your savings I already been there for years for birding or a landscape. But when wanting to get it all in to speak for many the 16-35mm is a start but wanting a wider look you go to the 12-24mm making a two lens camera bag but before the 12-24 there was the Sony E 10-18 but also Canon had a EF-S 10-18mm, Nikon AF-S 10-18mm all APS-C lenses 15/16 to 27. But the Sony on a mirrorless full frame gave 12-18mm coming out for the APS-C Sony Camera but with experimentation by Trey Ratciff it was found to be good in Full Frame at 12mm but in 2013 vs 2017 of the 12-24mm so some 3-4 years landscapers had a one up on others not having to do panoramas but able to get the same in a 3:2 aspect ratio not elongated.
Bottom line as a introvert or extrovert is also being a lone wolf type the ability to solve problems alone! Some will say Smart, but the introvert never thinks about that or cares for the title.
Also the lens type one uses most can not place one in either category. Just like if someone likes Macro or the wide landscape it is a choice at a time of wanting a certain image.
The main thing to look at is if the photographer is alone with the camera or like to be in groups, I know you do groups but your videos show alone time the fun time also shows you figuring things on the go the intelligent part thinking alone no other input.
Also the photographer who does studio work is like the so called Man Cave type alone there but comes out of it to make a dollar or two the intel part of the skill.
The luckiest Lone Wolf type is to find a mate who also is a Lone Wolf who has their skill of their own.
After two boring marriages,wives said, I found my Lone Wolf who understands my draw to alone time at night doing Milky Ways or sunrise/sets while she sits in the car or waits in the hotel room doing cross stitch or reading a 600 page book.
And as a note I went unable to spell words and was saved by a Osborne Executive Computer when I became a supervisor.
My question is are farmers introverts or extroverts a lot of alone time?
1-3 are the 24-240mm and the last the E 10-18mm in full frame at 12mm in 2005

A little long winded! But those that are introverted are the ones bullied in school and in the offices for they are faster and more knowledgeable than extroverts. Introverts do not watch TV much but are thinking or doing in the hours others sit and watch. Introverts do not set for the 4+ hours of football, basketball, and the plus hours of baseball except those that follow the statistics, like the kids in the stands of baseball. Extroverts are like sheep going with others to fill stadium's for the closeness of others. I never made the connection to the two groups term but there are inventors and makers and the users in life without one you do not get the other.
Example my wife was a very fast typist, shorthand with intrinsic memory (known as photographic) but shy and bullied due to her abilities being way better than others. She fell into doing papers for rich college kids for her ability to compose with pin point wording and never attending a class while working at the college as a report writer for a group of engineers to make extra $ for her pay was low or unappreciated, also performed as a paralegal for many different companies like Mayo Clinic and many legal firms without ever getting a legal degree and still underpaid because no degree. So fast with the old manual typewriter and manual adding machine her manager/boss hand to replace every two to three months because the gears were wore out. She is 5'2" with little hands and when in high school the typing instructor said your hands are to small you will never get it or be fast, upon graduation and after attending/graduating only a year at a business school she took the state/federal typing test with a manual typewriter going so fast the carriage flew off onto the floor making all others leave thinking she was a plant but finished fastest in the state with no errors not once but twice. She can sew a suite or dress with less material, do a big Cross-stitch or many for Christmas or holidays or gifts in a day.
One key thing when having to be seen by a fully qualified psychiatrist for secured jobs she would sit end up helping the psychiatrist's with their problems just after minutes some in tears by the end.
All that before 35 years old and without me but was told by many others.
She is the Lone Wolf of women with few friends due to many just use her to shake the trees for them and other employes are out done so they either try to make things difficult by bullying or just stay away.
After meeting and being around hearing all this I had to ask her if she was working for the CIA or at least NASA.
I say all this for if you see one you should hire and give the highest salary you can!
I have been blessed to have in my life for over 40 years. For two Lone Wolves on a great adventure, others could only be so blessed! If you are an introvert and have such a mate you have a treasure, remember and treat with kindness every day!!!
It is funny you never know what you or others are your entire life or how blessed!
If you see a introvert or someone being bullied get that person/child into some great education for they will be the Boss one day that the bullies will come for a job forgetting the boss was one they bullied.

I wonder what says more about a photographer's personality - their favorite lens, or their entire collection of lenses.

My favorite lens is my Sigma 60-600mm.

And yes, it absolutely is representative of my personality. How so?

Well, I want to capture as much as possible - I do not want to miss ANYTHING, EVER! Pretty much everything in my life is consistent with this -

..... it takes me a month or more to drive from Pennsylvania back to Washington state because there are SO MANY places I want to explore along the way

..... I subscribe to over 150 channels on YouTube and have created over 50 custom playlists because I want to garner as much info about as many things as possible

..... I have a gazillion hobbies, and get really, really in depth with each and every one

..... I have had many different jobs over the years, jobs that are entirely unrelated to each other, because I wanted to learn about so many different things.

..... I desperately want to be in 10 or 20 or 2,000 places at once because I hate that I am missing out on something somewhere

..... this is even evident here with my use of the Fstoppers site, where I have made thousands and thousands of comments on hundreds of different articles

So of course my favorite lens would be a 10x zoom, going all the way from 60mm to 600mm. And of course I use the lens a lot at 60mm and a lot at 600mm and a lot everywhere in between! Why? Because I want to capture as many things as possible in as many ways as possible. And because there is seldom time to change lenses or to pick another body/lens combo out of the pack.

I mean, who would want to settle for one image from a scene like this when you could have dozens, all taken at different focal lengths and different perspectives?