From the course: The Practicing Photographer

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Limiting yourself to a fixed-focal-length lens

Limiting yourself to a fixed-focal-length lens

From the course: The Practicing Photographer

Limiting yourself to a fixed-focal-length lens

I love my zoom lens. I've got several zoom lenses. They're mostly what I shoot with. But you gotta be careful with them because they will make you lazy. Here's what I mean. Got some nice subject matter over there. I can stand here and take a picture of it, and maybe go, Oh, really, to get the composition I want, I need to get a little bit closer. Oh, I don't have to walk over there. I can just zoom in. Well, there's a difference. The picture that I get from standing back here and zooming in is very different from the picture that I get when I walk closer and zoom out. If you watched Foundations of Photography: Lenses, you should know all about this. So, I want you, if you're willing, to try an exercise here. If you, like me, mostly shoot with a zoom lens, stop. Now you can do that either by going and buying an expensive prime lens. Or, you can just promise yourself that you're going to go out shooting at a particular focal length and you're never going to zoom. So, for example, I'm…

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