It’s week two of shooting at only 27mm (which is 18mm on my mirrorless APS-C sensor camera). Like I predicted last week, this focal length works much better when you’re walking through a city centre where everything is closer together. You can make the most of the wide-angle view to capture the scene/vibe and it is easier to get closer to people and objects.
Grey-blue buildings on a grey day
Photo taken from ground level looking straight up to the tops of a few tall office buildings. The buildings all have blue-grey windows and the sky overhead is overcast and grey.
Evening showers in Docklands
Photo looking up at a few tall office buildings through a glass awning in front of a build that's on the other side of the street. The glass of the awning is wet because of the rain.
Warm buns in a shelf at Breadtop
Close-up photo taken through a shop window of several, individually wrapped buns lying in a large wooden tray in a bakery.
Interesting fashion choices for a rain day
Photo of the legs and feet of a man standing at an intersection. The man is wearing shorts, calf-length black office socks (with a white pattern on them), and a pair of what appear to be rock climbing shoes with grips on all six sides (basically everywhere but the hole that the foot goes through). The man is carrying a cloth satchel in his left hand.
No one is seated outdoors on a rainy day
Photo of several wooden tables and benches lined up along the edge of a wide footpath in the city centre. There are also a few metal tables and chairs lined up next to the wooden ones. The area is covered by a couple of large, black-and-white striped umbrellas, but all the tables and chairs are wet nonetheless. Across the street is a line of several brownstone office buildings.
Umbrellas out on a rainy day in the city
Photo of a woman standing at an intersection, waiting for the light to change so she can cross. The woman is wearing a black puffer jacket and a white, patterned face mask. She is holding a domed, transparent umbrella in her right hand and a smartphone in her left hand (held close to her body so it stays under the umbrella).
Liberation can only be achieved…
Close-up photo of a large piece of graffiti painted on a wall that reads (in stylised, all capital letters) “Liberation can only by achieved through grace, radical understanding, and self love”.
Tram stops? I sure hope it does!
Photo of a large yellow road sign along tram tracks at an intersection in the city centre. The sign has an arrow pointing left and all-caps black lettering that reads “tram stops”.
You are at the corner of Queen and Collins Streets, Melbourne
Photo of a large street map installed on a tall, wide metal slab along the side of a road in the city centre. Marked on the map is a blue-filled circle that reads “You”. A larger blue circle drawn around the map is labelled ‘5 minutes walk”.
Empty benches on a rainy day in the city
Close-up photo taken from seat-height along the length of two metal benches installed along a footpath in the city centre. Both benches are wet, and so no one is sitting in them.
Wet benches on a rainy day in the city
Close-up photo taken from seat-height along the length of two metal benches installed along a footpath in the city centre. Both benches are wet, and so no one is sitting in them.
A bike named Larry (yes, yes, I know, that’s the brand name)
Close-up photo of a race/city hybrid bicycle locked to a metal bicycle stand in the city centre. The bike frame is black, but the top of the down tube has a white section on which the brand name ‘Larry’ is written in all capital letters.
Three locks walk into a bike stand
Close-up photo of three thick and heavy bicycle locks locked to an empty metal bicycle stand in the city centre.
Wet lime
Photo of a bright lime green bicycle helmet placed on a metal pillar along a road in the city centre. The helmet is wet from the rain and has the brand name ‘lime’ written on it in white, lowercase letters.
Next week I move on to shooting at only 35mm, which I think I’ll find more challenging. I’m used to loosely composing my frame at 27mm and then zooming in or cropping a little in post to get the photo I actually want. From next week I’ll have to do all that before I take the photo. I’m looking forward to seeing how I go :)
Also, two things have changed since I started on this ‘one focal length at a time’ experiment:
I’m going to add the 4omm focal length into the mix (in addition to 35, 55, and 85mm). This is because Fujifilm have an excellent 27mm pancake lens I would love to have, and that translates to a 41mm focal length on my camera. If I find 40mm-ish works well for me, that might be the first prime lens I get.
I’m considering investing in only weather-sealed lenses and, in the future, only in weather-sealed camera bodies. I live in Melbourne, Australia where it rains 139 days a year. And because neither my current camera body nor my current lenses are weather sealed, I can’t go out and take photos when it’s raining.
In the short term I plan to buy a rain cover for my camera, so this isn’t something I need to address straight away. But if I am going to be buying a new lens in the next few months, I might as well try to buy one that’s weather sealed and, therefore, something I can keep long term.
(Assuming this is within my budget, of course, since sometimes it’s only the more professional versions of Fujifilm’s lenses that are weather sealed. That 27mm pancake lens I mentioned above is both decently priced and weather sealed, by the way, which is why it’s one of my front runners.)
I guess we’ll see which way I’m leaning by the end of this experiment.
But for now it’s time to say goodbye to 27mm and move on to 35mm. Let’s go!