24 70mm Feels Boring Until You Learn This

In this video, I'm going to talk to you about why the 24-70mm lens feels boring for so many photographers. What changes when you figure out how to actually use it? So I'm going to show you how I use the 24-70mm. But a lot of people pick up the 24-70mm and I think they feel like it just feels like nothing interesting. Like nothing ever really happens with it. Everything just feels like a bit of nowhere. So they end up preferring wide lenses for drama or telephoto lenses because they can simplify scenes, remove distractions and it makes composition just feel a lot easier. But if I look back through my own work, my portraits and my landscapes and my wedding photography as well, a huge amount of photos that are in my portfolio sit somewhere between 24 and 70mm. And I don't think that's just because it's a versatile lens. I think it's partly because of that. But it's also because I think that that focal range actually forces you to make different decisions. But before we get into that, let me know in the comments, do you use a 24-70mm or, you know, a mid-range zoom, whatever system you're using, something that's equivalent to that? So this is one of these technical misunderstandings that makes the 24-70mm feel useless for a lot of people. Moving in closer and zooming in closer aren't the same thing. And I know you've probably heard of people saying, zoom with your feet, right? You've heard that before, that saying. That advice is everywhere. And the problem is that it's wrong. Or at least we could say that it's not complete. So let me show you what I mean. If you look at these two images, I know they're simple and they're basic, but I just shot these so I could show you what I mean. This is the same bench with reasonably similar framing, as close as I could reasonably get it to. On one side, you've got 24mm, and the background feels like it's further away. And you can see how much space there is between the bench and the trees in the background. On the left-hand side, I'm standing back, but I'm at 50mm and I'm trying to reasonably match the framing of the 24mm. So I just walked backwards, went to 50mm and tried to frame up the same. But now the background feels like it's much closer behind the bench and the trees and things in the background feel closer, more stacked together and larger. That's because this position creates that feeling. The focal length just creates how much I'm including of that. So this is what people get wrong. When you move closer to something, you change the relationship between the subject and everything else in the frame. If you zoom in while standing still, all you're doing is cropping tighter. The relationship stays exactly the same. That's the difference. And that's why zooming with your feet is bad advice because moving changes your perspective. Zooming doesn't. So this comes back to the same rule, is you need to decide where you want to be first and then choose to zoom to frame it properly and get the focal length that you want in that position. And if you don't practice stuff like this deliberately, if you just twist the zoom ring around on one spot, you will never develop an instinct for it. And it will always feel frustrating and like it's a boring lens. If you want to prove this to yourself, just do what I just did here. Shoot at 50 millimeters and 24 millimeters, move around and try to get the same framing with both focal lengths, and you'll see how much difference moving around makes. So to show you how the perspective doesn't change when I'm on one spot, if you look at these pictures here, I'm standing on the same spot. The buildings and the trees and the relationship between everything in the frame stays exactly the same. The only thing that changes is how much I'm cropping in. In fact, I can crop the 24 millimeter image in post and get essentially the same photo. Do this a few times with different subjects yourself and you're not going to confuse this stuff again. So when it comes to the 24-70, a lot of people use it completely backwards. So what they'll do is they'll stand in one spot and they'll slam the zoom ring back and forth, trying to get a photo out of it, trying to make something work. They'll go for a wide shot, a tight shot, then wide and then tight again. And then they'll wonder why everything feels just a bit flat and boring. What matters is that zooming doesn't solve composition. It's your position that does. So the zoom ring that's on the 24-70 is not there to fix your compositional problems. It's there to sort of tidy up after you've already solved them. Let me show you what I mean. This image works because of where I'm standing. It's not so much of the focal length I chose. You know, you could shoot at various different focal lengths from this exact position. But the point is that if you're standing there, your perspective is always going to be identical. The only difference would be how much the lens crops in. If I stood somewhere else and tried to fix it by zooming, that wouldn't work because the relationship that you have between your foreground subject and background would have been wrong. So it stays wrong. So zooming isn't going to fix that. So it's important that you understand it's your position where you stand that actually affects the image that you get. Zooming just gives you framing options, that's all. If you look at this image, I'm extremely close here, but I need to be this close for the relationship to work, for the background to be where I want it to be relative to the subject. That's doing all of the heavy lifting. That's what's making this picture work. With a zoom lens, like a 24-70, you have to choose to move. Even though you could just twist the zoom and just stay put, most people will take that easy option and just try and zoom their way out of a problem. But they'll stand still. And that's why the 24-70 feels boring to them. It's not the lens that's the problem, it's the habit of how they work. And it's why I think everyone should always start with either like a 35-40 or a 50mm prime or equivalent, something like that. So you learn to actually move, you learn that from prime lenses first. So this is how I work with a 24-70. I tend to set the lens to either 35 or 50mm, because that gives me a base to work from. So when I'm walking around, I'm using it a bit like a prime lens to get my distances right. I kind of have a feel for a 35 and a 50, and I know kind of where I am. And I'm looking at lighting, I'm looking at backgrounds. I'm just seeing what's there. And when something feels right, that's when I'll look at the camera, check and see, do I need to move or do I need to zoom? Sometimes if the frame is just right, I just need to zoom. I can zoom in and out and tidy it up a little bit. Sometimes I realize I'm totally in the wrong spot here. And if I'm at 35 or 50, I can judge that like really quickly. I can look at the camera and go, yeah, this isn't the right spot. And when I get to the right spot, that's when I'm going to start zooming. I have to be clear with this. You can't just watch YouTube videos and try to figure out how to become a photographer. You have to listen to things like this and then try it for yourself. And then you'll actually know it. It gets ingrained. There's a big difference between repeating what I'm saying to you and being able to actually demonstrate it and do it. Because if you can't demonstrate it, if you can't do it, then you don't really know it. It's not enough just to repeat what someone says. What the 24-70 does is it actually exposes your composition. So if your framing is weak, you will see it immediately. I have a series of free e-books. The links are in the description down below. I've got ones on outdoor portrait lighting. I've got ones on landscape photography. I've got one on studio lighting as well. You can check those out. They're free. The links are below. But the one thing that people lack once they get their composition and lighting right is their editing. Editing is the other half of the puzzle that you need to solve. I have masterclasses in portrait photography and landscape photography editing. The links are in the description down below. Go and check them out. They will make a massive difference to how your photography looks and how expressive it is. Give me a like if you enjoyed this. Subscribe if you're new here. Or if you've been watching for a while and you haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe because it really helps the channel out. I'll see you guys again in the next video. Take care. Bye bye.