Giveaway

I gave my sister the d40 for Christmas. I've kept silent about ordering the d7000 for awhile because it was intended to be a surprise (which it was, more or less). I gave her the 55–200 as well as the kit lens, anticipating that I'll get an 85mm prime sometime to hit that range. I don't know which of them I'll get.

As soon as it comes in (I've been waiting since 4 November!), I'll post impressions, reviews, and, of course, pictures.

The inaugural photography outing with a group of friends will take place 22 January; hopefully it'll arrive by then.

Perspective

Thom Hogan (page at right) put together a string of posts he calls "you week." The page itself is fairly long, but his commentary is well worth reading. He gave an assignment: take a fixed lens, set your camera to manual focus/exposure, and go shoot. He comments on a few reactions:

• You discovered that your pictures looked different. Using only one focal length tends to make you move in order to frame your shot. Moving to frame changes your perspective. When you start changing perspective between shots you get pictures that leave differing impressions of foreground and background relationships. Heard about the 3D craze going around Hollywood? Well, you just discovered 2D. All good. You need more practice, though. Take two primes of different focal length and start exploring moving in relationship to your subject.

This is a really interesting comment, because it demonstrates so clearly what makes primes an interesting tool: perspective. Perspective is influenced by both the focal length and distance to the subject. Framing the subject in the same space using two different focal lengths requires moving back and forth—and it represents things much differently.