Why Lenses Matter More Than You Think

So recently I was thinking to myself what is the most important thing when it comes to taking a photograph. When I'm out there with my camera what comes first you know and there was many different things flying through the old brain and I mean this probably changes from time to time with me but at the minute at least there's one thing that came to mind that is massively important to me. So I'm going to get a little bit further up this track and we'll talk all about it. Today's video by the way is sponsored by MPB a massive thank you to them and we'll chat a little bit more about them later on in the video. So I'm out today with the OM5 so nice and simple I have got my tripod with me but I probably won't use it I don't really know why I even brought it. Now to get on to the subject of today's what's the most important part of taking a photograph and I thought to myself it's got to be composition but it felt a bit too vague you know and I'm taking a photograph here where composition yes it's very important however there's another aspect of this image and it's all to do with composition it's a facet of it but it's a little bit more specific and it's something that I think about with every image regardless of the genre the location the type of photograph it always comes up in the old mind and simply put that thing is focal length this is something that over the years I've realized is a massive part of the creative side of photography although it's obviously something quite technical and for me as a photographer having a choice of different focal lengths when I'm out and about on a photo shoot just like we are today is so important for my creativity and for the look and the feel of the final photograph so for today's photo shoot for example in this beautiful spring bluebell woodland here in the lake district national park what a day for it I've got a fairly big disparity so I've got a nine millimeter wide angle lens so about 18 millimeters full frame and I've also got a 12 to 60 millimeter lens so 24 to 120 full frame equivalent and generally speaking depending on what camera system I'm using I've got anything from sort of 14 millimeters full frame equivalent right up to 200 and like I said personally I love having all of those different focal lengths at my disposal as a photographer for my creativity this image for example was taken in this woodland at a really wide angle and just look at the image for a second you know it's obviously been taken with a reasonably wide angle lens it's got a certain feel to it and then look at this image which was also taken in the same woodland a much longer focal length a completely different type of photograph taken in exactly the same location in fact just a few steps between each other oh man this is just lovely to be honest one of the main reasons why I've come to this particular spot today is to scout it out a little bit myself and Ian Wirth have got our lakes photography tour coming up within the next few days and this woodland to be honest it's a bit of a plan b it's certainly not a primary location but it's a maybe and I just wanted to come here today to see how far along spring is in this particular spot and I don't know about yous but I'm thinking it's looking pretty flipping nice the bluebells are probably peak at the minute it's wonderful now in terms of today's topic I'm putting pressure on myself here but I'd love to try and get one or two images that are at different focal lengths and really try and demonstrate why I'm choosing those particular focal lengths and hopefully show how different the images feel based on what focal length I choose to shoot at so we'll see how we get on so actually before we move on and hopefully try and get a couple more photographs I wanted to say another massive thank you to MPB for sponsoring today's video I feel like it's really relevant today considering we're talking about focal lengths and lenses and things like that so if you've never heard of them MPB is a fantastic online platform that you can use to buy or sell used photography or videography equipment in terms of buying from them they've got a massive catalog of gear and any piece of gear that you buy comes with a 12-month warranty which is unbelievable really competitive prices as well however where they get even better is in selling to them I think it's a fantastic service and all you do is head over to their website type in the the gear or various pieces of gear that you might be looking to sell and you will get an instant quote and it gets better if you're happy with the quote MPB will pay for a courier to come out to your house at a date of your choosing and all you've got to do is box the gear up it'll go to MPB and the money will be in your account within a few days obviously all being well so yeah fantastic service I've used them before I was sponsored by them I couldn't recommend them highly enough if you want to buy or sell any of your gear so you can scan the QR code up on the screen now or there'll be a link in the video description below if you use those it really helps me out because it tells MPB that you've come from me and yeah honestly they're amazing if you want to buy or sell photography gear so another massive thank you to them for supporting my work and cheers to you lot for listening let's crack on so this is a wonderful little photograph here I'm really excited and let's start with focal length because of course that's what we're talking about today look at that 60 millimeters so this is the longest focal length that I've got with me today compared to the first image that I got which was at 12 millimeters not ultra wide but pretty wide this image is going to have a completely different feel now what we've got here is this little bunch of wild garlic flowers however what's important as is so often the case is light the flowers are lit up by the harsh midday sun but then we've also got this wonderful shadow in the background on this dry stone wall all of this moss so a gorgeous little contrast there's a couple of things that I've got to be really careful with with this shot firstly exposure I'm quite heavily underexposing because I don't want to blow out any of the highlights on the flowers so I'm actually kind of two stops underexposed even the histogram is looking a bit dodgy and then secondly is focus I'm actually at f10 which on the micro four thirds is really stopping down because I just want all of the flowers to be in focus obviously zoomed in at such a long focal length I've got to really be careful with that focus as well but I think that's going to be all right nice little square crop like I said before a completely different feel hopefully from the image that was taken before at 12 millimeters so just briefly before I forget because I feel like I'm going to forget to say this I just wanted to give you another quick reminder about the raffle that I'm running so for anybody that doesn't know what I'm on about I'm raffling off one of my prints it's only going to be on for another week or so so get in whilst you can and it's of this particular photograph here that was taken from waller cragg a beautiful springtime photograph it's a three foot wide print acrylic fronted aluminium backed and it's ready to hang on the wall it is gorgeous it's cost me about 500 quid to get printed out and it could be yours for as little as two pound obviously you can buy as many raffle tickets as you want so you can scan the qr code up on the screen you can go to henryturnerphotography.co.uk or there'll be a link in the video description below any of those methods will give you all of the information that you need five percent of the proceeds are going to go to Keswick Mountain Rescue and yeah thank you so much for anyone that gets involved I think because I don't really know yet this is quite new it's going to be a really good way to support the channel and I'll send it anywhere in the world like I said last week I hope somebody in the UK wins it because it'll be a lot cheaper for me but either way the idea of one of you is potentially winning that for two quid is unreal so thank you so much for anyone that decides to buy a ticket and the best of luck so I'm just looking at this scene here I've come a little bit further around now you can see we've got this gorgeous vista in the background of Windermere it's a really tricky day to try and shoot anything you know wide angle I certainly like I said before I've been putting pressure on myself with this one and this feels like it's got potential however I feel like it's just a little bit too messy a bit tricky the bluebells as I'm sure a lot of you know are actually really difficult I find to shoot with a wide angle and woodland in general actually so perhaps I've not chosen the best of locations to prove my point but I really wanted to talk about that you know how wide angle is kind of that opposite end of obviously what I shot that wild garlic flower at before where it's a completely different feel and I love shooting wide angle I'll definitely make a video about that soon it's really really fun I feel like it's quite a specialist focal length but some of my favorite images have been shot at ultra wide angle focal lengths and again I feel like it's all about that kind of creativity where I turn up at a location and I think yes this is going to look wonderful with a wide angle lens certainly at coastal landscapes or when I'm out in the fells or something you know more open landscapes rather than being constrained to a woodland like this yeah probably not the best of location choices I think actually the importance of focal length to me can be really summed up in the fact that when I get to a location and certainly when I start thinking there might be a photograph you know those early stages I'm actually thinking in terms of focal length straight away before I've even got the camera out of the bag so this image that's just popped into my head which was taken in Tenerife when I got to that beach saw all the rocks saw the distant cliffs immediately I thought wide angle and I think that particular image that you see in there was taken at seven millimeters and then you know on the contrary this image that was taken in Madeira was a much longer focal length because I wanted to isolate a subject I wanted to isolate the sea stacks however on that particular beach I also took various images at wider angles some a little bit more sort of mid-range focal lengths you know so it very much depends on the feel that you want to get across I mean those ones on the beach in Madeira are great examples because that's very much like quite varying focal lengths you know for I guess different stories that you want to get across in your images just one final reminder about my raffle of this image here which by the way it was a panorama so this was actually the best of both worlds in terms of focal length I was zoomed in slightly but then of course panning across those trees so we managed to get quite a wide feel of view as well which is why I love panoramas but I'd love for yous to get involved it's only on for another week like I think I said the raffle so thank you so much and thanks for watching this week's video I hope you enjoyed it please do comment down below what's your relationship like with focal lengths I would love to hear from yous cheers ladies and gents see yous on the next adventure out