How I choose my lenses on location. Is a 24-200mm all purpose lens any good?

a big thanks to squarespace for sponsoring this week's video in this week's episode i play composition ping pong dying dying dying talk to a drone nearly lose my camera and basically just lose the plot [Music] morning everybody fantastic to see you all again so in this video i'm in the lake district hiking on a mountain obviously i'm not doing that now i'm in my studio but before we get out there i just want to talk to you a little bit about lenses because it's the question that i get asked more than anything else and i go and hike quite a long way up the mountain in the lake district and i had a decision on what lenses to take and i wanted to sort of go through my decision-making process now we'll go over to the mountain which was phenomenal i'll show you that footage which is a little short video and then we'll come back print out the images and we can have a look at some things so i i often get asked why have you got an f4 and f 2.8 you've got 24 to 70 lens you've got a 24 to 200 lens so why have you got all these lenses and what lenses do i need i get asked more questions about lenses than anything else so i have mentioned it a little bit in other videos but recently i got this 24 to 200 millimeter lens which is a variable aperture and it's phenomenal and the most important thing is it's super light um you know it's it's almost the same size as my 24 to 70 uh f4 lens and that range is covered by these two beasts of lenses which is a 70 to 200 f 2.8 and a 24 to 70 f 2.8 those two lenses are my sharpest lenses they're the best quality lenses and the lenses that if i can i will have with me because they're going to give me the best quality these two lenses which are much lighter don't give me as much quality so obviously if i'm going to hike a long way especially with my back i'm i don't want to carry as much stuff because i want to know that i am going to get there fresh and with you know enough energy to be able to take the shots because you know i want that creativity that's the most important thing that i've got creativity so uh this lens allows me to shoot really good quality images not as good quality as this but really good quality images and hike a long way basically the other advantage of having a 24 to 200 millimeter lens on you is that you have to swap lenses so if you're hand holding a lot and and the lights changing then it just gives you more ability to be able to change composition which is a good and a bad thing i suppose why would i just not have this all the time well if i'm going to woodland and shooting in woodland then this is my go-to lens by 24 to 70. it's probably a good enough range and it is a pretty spectacularly sharp lens um it's probably the sharpest lens that i've ever owned and when i say sharp this lens is as sharp as this lens in the middle and some focal lengths this lens almost is as good as this lens and some apertures this lens get gets better um and approaches this lens but overall you can shoot this lens at more apertures and more focal ranges and get i know you're going to get sharp images to the edge whereas this lens at certain um focal lengths 24 millimeters for instance it's not really sharp towards the edges whereas in the middle range of focal um length it's it's quite a lot sharper so you've got to sort of know your lens a little bit better that's really important when you're shooting with a lens like this and what i recommend is that you just go and shoot some images you know just shoot um you know your a brick wall or something like that with the all the lenses that you've got are different apertures different focal lengths and just see you know how their tail off and towards it towards the edge but that's basically it really but as you'll see in this video all i do is take photos with this lens 24-200 and they are spectacular i'm going to print one really big on this beast of a printer we can have a look at it look at the edges of it and i can show you the small floors in it but basically just how sharp it is over most of the image as well okay so over to me one evening in the lake district and some pretty awesome conditions so as you can see those conditions were so amazing and my vlog was rubbish so let's just have a quick look at some photos we'll go through the photos and then we can choose one to print and we can print it on here morning everybody fantastic to see you again well for me it's evening and i'm hiking in the really sort of rugged area of the lake district behind me is um called coal pike and there's going to be a view of a place called crinkle crags which hopefully if the sun sets should be just the right angle to get some nice raking light on it but i've not been lucky the last few days so i'm hoping we're gonna get some sort of quite interesting clouds like the ones that are forming behind me and yeah get some good photos oh i'm not far off up now i've just been having a look around that corner just to see if there's any compositions i've got lots of time it's like three hours before sunset so um i might have even have a little sleep although that might be a bad idea on a mountain don't do that um yeah so it's it's pretty spectacular up here i love it on the fells in the lake district it's windy though and fairly wild so i've just got a bit of a scramble up all these rocks now to the top um and then a good amount of time just to sort of try and get the lay of the land a little bit i saw a really nice set of rocks down there but i i think i'll have a better shot of crinkle crags over there so i think it'll be worth going a bit further [Music] okay so hopefully you can hear me because it's super windy and i'm gonna have to keep facing this way but i thought it'd be a really good idea um whilst i'm on top of the mountain and waiting for the light to come good is to explain my sort of theory about coming up here so you can see at the moment the sun's coming from that direction shooting directly in that direction and you're never gonna shoot in that direction someone's gonna set over there so i'm hoping for some raking light just over these mountains that you can come around and see now so the mountains that you're looking at there i'm hoping that there's gonna be some lovely light on there and then what i'm going to try and do is just find a foreground somewhere around here and yeah i mean it's it's pretty spectacular it's a definitely a a cool spot the thing i've got to be a little bit careful of is when you come around again you'll you'll see but um i think there's a shot in that direction right there you can see you can see the sea and on a clear day you can see the isle of man but i think the biggest issue is going to be there's a quite a in this direction there's quite a big sort of flat area so i've got to be a little bit careful when i'm composing that that i i just i don't have too much of that in the scene so i'll probably get lower i'll probably go back from some rocks and then have sort of foreground and mid ground rocks rather than just on the precipice of somewhere but i think if i get it right then i think it'll look pretty good because as you can see that you know as you come around again that it's so nice i mean the light when it just comes good over there just looks fantastic [Music] this is amazing i am on top of the world and you can see when i turn around just how windy it is ah this is just so good right well i'm gonna get down this way oh [Music] okay i think i've found a composition here i've taken the shot because the sun's obviously changing quite a lot and um this is in shade from from the hill just on the left hand side as you look at it but i really like this rock here i really like how it's sort of catching just the light here and then the grass is just catching the light as well and then i've just sort of got this sort of diagonal and then another bit of rock in the sort of mid far ground and then the the distant mountains as well and and i think there's a lot of similarities between these and it's often quite difficult to find something that works when you've got a mass of rocks like this um but i think this i think this is good obviously it's going to change when the light goes down so this composition only lasts for now so it's not the warmest light um and that's one of the things you find the composition and then the light changes and you've got to find a different one it's a bit tricky but you know trying to have simple foregrounds is is important uh so to try and think about that the other thing is that i'm not shooting super wide because if i shoot super wide and i'll point down on the thing the mountains in the background are quite a long way away and they're not they don't look massive so i'm shooting sort of about 35 millimeters which means it's more difficult to get everything in focus so i'm focused stacking i'm focusing on the foreground and the distance the reason i'm pointing this way is because it's windy so yeah look at this it's unbelievable yes and i think we're going to get pretty nice um golden light now i'm not going to stay up here for sunset because we're one i've got to get down before it's dark i don't mind going up in the dark but i don't really like going down in the dark and yeah so um so i've probably got about another hour and a half um which is about as long as i can probably go whoa the camera nearly went then it's a hard thing to know oh the light's getting good now it's really really good so i've seen these rocks here so i like the shape of these rocks and this little bit of grass here and i've done a vertical composition with the sort of background and then you know just over there there's there's a clump of rocks there's a and there's just like it's almost like ping pong your eye goes doing doing dying and then to the path and then finally to the mountain in the background and the clouds aren't too bad actually but there's this there's a black cloud coming i just hope that gets a bit further over because if we can get some black dark cloud not only does it look good but it helps to balance the whole exposure because as the light gets lower and will start to get um you know not as strong shadows and then it's easier to to balance it the dynamic range is not quite the same um but you can see now just as the lights getting lower we've got more sort of texture in the grass and texture in the rock it just makes everything look better this is amazing guys this is so i'm so glad to be back on a mountain it doesn't get better than this ah it really doesn't [Music] [Music] when okay i've just it's just crazy the light is just so spectacular i've never been in a place where the compositions in every single direction i've just literally gone to pop making this vlog because i've just been shooting so much so i think the best thing to do is i'll try and get some b-roll as i'm shooting and i'll record some of the things and we'll probably go back to the studio and i'll sort of talk you through um the shots because i'm just not gonna be able to do any video whilst i'm shooting this but oh look at the light look at the cloud coming in over there it's so good it's so good um i've i've been running around so much so yes i'll do some b-roll i'll hopefully fly my drone and you'll see a little bit of it as well it's so good it doesn't get better than this no way does it ever get better than this every single direction look over there well that was the most manic hour i think of my photography career and i think i got something good but i have never run around and taken so many different shots it was chaos um i'd lined up this really good composition then the light didn't hit it then the light came out somewhere else and somewhere else looked good anyway i kept i've come down because as you can see behind me the cloud is dropping at a rapid rate so what it drives me though is there's still lots of good compositions but i just can't vlog it's just impossible because i'm just it's just not possible so yeah what a day what a day oh i'm looking forward to seeing those photos they should be so good anyway hopefully i've explained and you've seen the photos now and you know that's that's hopefully we're good and thanks for watching if you've enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up because um it massively helps my channel and i really appreciate it right hi i'm hungry now but i'm probably not gonna get my dinner for quite a while because i've got about an hour and a half walk and i'm probably gonna stop on the way so that was quite a manic evening i got down safely and i took a few photos on on the way down but i printed out a few photos i always like to print out my photos just to have a have a look what they turned out like i really like this one i thought this was really good this was at 24 millimeters and actually you can see on this lens that here and up here it's quite soft i'll show that on the screen in the middle it's it's fantastic it really really is and then this one was at 35 millimeters and if you remember in the video i showed you two versions of this this is the one where the light was just a little bit softer on on the foreground i'm actually going to print really big in a minute the one um where the light was a little bit stronger because i like the composition here a little bit changing light is really important in composition just where the light might hit here but not the background mountain it helps to separate mountains so if you're shooting something in those clouds going over just look at how the clouds are hitting the mountains and if you just get the timing right then you can get something really spectacular and then as i was coming down i i took this shot um which was a shot that i i really like you know the sheep's just standing just in the perfect place and you know there was a little bit more color in the clouds unfortunately i didn't get the the sunset and there was no sunset uh this was pretty much the last i saw of the sun you can see there's no sun on here um it just went behind the cloud unfortunately um but yeah i like this uh i think this is really good and then the other shot i was just taking earlier in the day that i printed and i really like this because um it just shows you can get something with fluffy white clouds and blue sky um i just use this cloud as part of the composition really i like the way that this sort of mimics a little bit this part of the of the image um so yeah i really like that so um they're the a3 prints so what i thought i'd do is i print this image here um really large so i've got it set up to print um let's have a look at the page set up um 600 by 800 millimeters on this beast of a printer it's going to be printed on nst bright white okay so let's print it [Music] okay so this looks really really good the quality is so good you can see like all the details and and the edge detail is really good as well i mean it was shot at 37 millimeters and the lens just improved so much more so it just proves that shooting with a 24 to 200 millimeter lens as long as you know your lens you know where it's sharp and the focal lengths are good you can get something pretty spectacular and it just gives you that versatility where maybe you don't want to hike with a little bit more weight so what i thought i'd do is i'd give away this print this um almost one meter long print that i took in the late district so if you want a chance of winning this then you need to make sure that you've liked the video you subscribe to the video and you post a comment below and basically i just want to know what your favorite lenses and you know when you go hiking what do you take with you oh this looks really good i think i'm going to have to get a little bit of a closer look [Music] okay before i go just want to mention the world landscape photographer competition if you haven't entered you've got one day left to enter and have a chance of winning these amazing prices a nikon z72 and a 24-7 f 2.8 lens which is my favorite woodland lens it is absolutely spectacular and sharp all the way to the edges is pretty amazing so to enter the world landscape photographer it's just 10 pound about 95 of it goes to charity the link is in the description there's lots of other prizes as well just go and take a look at the website but you've got one day left and i can't wait to start looking at all the entries and a big thank you to squarespace that have sponsored this week's episode and also provided the world landscape photographer website for free they've been a fantastic partner of mine over the last few years and made it possible for me to do some pretty amazing things in my photography journey so thanks squarespace if you need a website or a domain then make sure you head to squarespace.com and you can get 10 off by going to forward slash nigel or using offer code nigel okay thanks ever so much for watching and until next sunday bye

Channel: Nigel Danson

Views: 64,502

Keywords: lenses, photography, choosing lens, photography tips

Id: aS7MKsE6Va4

Length: 21min 32sec (1292 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021