Photography Instructor Bans Kit Lenses: Discuss

This instructor is denying students the opportunity to learn lens quality by experience but they will have practice at dealing with inept and arbitrary rules.

It's her class. She can teach it any way she wants. And if it's an advanced class, students should expect prerequisites. There are biology and economics textbooks that cost more than a used 24-105.

That being said, if it was my class, I'd have an exercise called '7 days with a kit lens.' More than anything else, kit lenses will amplify mistakes and force a good photographer to really pay attention to the basics before pressing the shutter. If you can learn to make a kit lens sing, learn to shoot through its constraints, then better glass will make everything easier.

I love North Bend.... awesome place. Used to live in Issaquah - then it became the "Plateau"..... Anyway.

Your comments are mostly spot on.

But last example. Lets say your training to be a professional diesel mechanic. And to do so, you show up to class with the cheapest of the cheap set of tools from Harbor Freight. Sure they will work. No doubt. And no doubt you'll get some experience using them trying to loosen bolts that have been over tightened.

But is that why your in mechanics school. To learn that using inferior equipment impacts your productivity? Or are you there to learn the nuances of the demands of a job doing professional work at its highest level. I can tell you the pay grade between the two will be different, and the assignments you get, will be different to. But sure... you can get low light shots with a kit lens.... how many and how consistently.... maybe you do need to learn that the hard way. A little light flare or softness in the edges - who care right. And in editorial photography, you can't rely on post to "fix" things... you get fired for such things.

North Bend.... great place... cheers

Photojournalism is full of inept and arbitrary rules... better they get used to it now than later....

Croasdail wrote in post #19259300
I love North Bend.... awesome place. Used to live in Issaquah - then it became the "Plateau"..... Anyway.

Your comments are mostly spot on.

But last example. Lets say your training to be a professional diesel mechanic. And to do so, you show up to class with the cheapest of the cheap set of tools from Harbor Freight. Sure they will work. No doubt. And no doubt you'll get some experience using them trying to loosen bolts that have been over tightened.

But is that why your in mechanics school. To learn that using inferior equipment impacts your productivity? Or are you there to learn the nuances of the demands of a job doing professional work at its highest level. I can tell you the pay grade between the two will be different, and the assignments you get, will be different to. But sure... you can get low light shots with a kit lens.... how many and how consistently.... maybe you do need to learn that the hard way. A little light flare or softness in the edges - who care right. And in editorial photography, you can't rely on post to "fix" things... you get fired for such things.

North Bend.... great place... cheers

North Bend is getting a little Issaquahed but it is a nice place. Can't blame folks for coming here. I been here 30 years. Commuted to Renton.

I did some time shooting for newspapers. A guy here asked for advice today about covering an event outside in available light. It's an easy shot. You shoot a million of them. But you gotta get every one right. A million for a million. Every assignment, that's the baseline. Bring back a good one, every time.

Your success rate has very little to do with glass most of the time. The skills you need most are the ability to find your light, size it up in the scene, find your angles, set your exposure and go, quickly. Hopefully without making anybody nervous.

If you can do all that right, you'll get a good picture. If you're afforded better gear and better circumstances you'll get better pictures, but you should be able to find a good picture with any gear. I think that could be part of a well-rounded photographic education.

In the old days, if people wanted a selfie they'd hand you their camera and ask you to take their picture. I guarantee, without ever seeing any of them, my frames were the best frames on the roll, every time, regardless of the camera. And I was happy to send them home with a good picture.

aezoss wrote in post #19256894
I don't remember seeing an inadvertently out of focus image in a major publication although I'm sure there are examples out there.

Welp, guess I gotta eat my hat.

This can't possibly be intentional. Probably a web editor error (if such things exist). If this was THE shot and the Globe published it I might have a career in photojournalism and I need to take back my criticism of the 18-55. The caption indicates the photo is of the athlete, not the stands.

https://www.theglobean​dmail.com …boarding-field/#c-image-0

Caption:
TOKYO, JAPAN - JULY 21: Funa Nakayama of Team Japan practices in front of empty spectator seating during the women's street skateboarder practice ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on July 21, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan.

When I was a grad assistant teaching intro to photography one of the first exercises we did was a group shoot on the campus. We encouraged the student to use whatever pricey gear they had access to. Meanwhile I and the professor used plastic giveaway rangefinder cameras. Of course a sound knowledge of composition and exposure meant our images from the throwaway cameras outshone the beginners with lots of gear. The lesson for the class was to separate gear from the fundamentals.

The instructor obviously has no idea about the 18-55 kit lenses. There are something like 8 variants and the last 2-3 actually have great IQ, rivaling some primes.

Bet she doesn’t even know there were so many variations including an ultrasonic motor version.

aezoss wrote in post #19265540
Welp, guess I gotta eat my hat.

This can't possibly be intentional. Probably a web editor error (if such things exist). If this was THE shot and the Globe published it I might have a career in photojournalism and I need to take back my criticism of the 18-55. The caption indicates the photo is of the athlete, not the stands.

https://www.theglobean​dmail.com …boarding-field/#c-image-0

Caption:
TOKYO, JAPAN - JULY 21: Funa Nakayama of Team Japan practices in front of empty spectator seating during the women's street skateboarder practice ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on July 21, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan.

This was intentional. Read the cutline again. A big story out of the Olympics is that there are no fans in attendance. This is a live illustration.

drsilver wrote in post #19265562
This was intentional. Read the cutline again. A big story out of the Olympics is that there are no fans in attendance. This is a live illustration.

Yeah to prove the point while capturing the subject, the athlete, is as simple as stopping the lens down.

It's a bad photo that shouldn't have been published. Borderline disrespectful to the skater imo. There's no journalistic merit in erasing a foreground human in favour of a background element that can be reasonably represented by being slightly out of focus.

C'mon. That was shot with at least a 400mm lens. You'd need 200 feet of depth of field to bring the athlete into focus. And then you'd squeak because the shutter speed was too low.

And I didn't say it was a good shot. Not even if you know that the empty stands are the story. If you go out with the idea of shooting that story and come back with this, remind us why you were sent to the Olympics.

I can even see this being an after-the-fact thing. Some editor says, "We got a story about no fans. You got any pictures that show that?" Photographer says, "The games haven't even started yet. I've been trying to hide the stands so far. I got a shot where my autofocus misfired." Editor, "I'll take it."

Croasdail wrote in post #19258692
I agree its the story more than the sharpness... but conversely if you are out doing editorial work, you are expected to be able to deliver... not just sharpness, but being able to get the shot at the critical time. You can't be waiting for a lens to hunt for focus. You can't have an image ruined from lens flair. It has to be durable for DAILY use... not just an hour or two on the weekend. It has to obtain focus every time. The image has to be usable, every time. It has to be reliable every shot. A plastic fantastic is not going to cut it. Has nothing to do with pixel peeping... it has to do with having an image every time that you can pixel peep.

When I was working it was not uncommon to have a half million images a year. Most ended up being binned because they were duplicates. Not because the images weren't captured. Thet is why I shot 1D bodies with L lenses. College classes are not about learning to take snapshots for instagram.

While I understand your point, I have to state that NO lens will obtain focus every time...perhaps 95 of 100, but still not 100%.

drsilver wrote in post #19265571
C'mon. That was shot with at least a 400mm lens. You'd need 200 feet of depth of field to bring the athlete into focus. And then you'd squeak because the shutter speed was too low.

And I didn't say it was a good shot. Not even if you know that the empty stands are the story. If you go out with the idea of shooting that story and come back with this, remind us why you were sent to the Olympics.

I can even see this being an after-the-fact thing. Some editor says, "We got a story about no fans. You got any pictures that show that?" Photographer says, "The games haven't even started yet. I've been trying to hide the stands so far. I got a shot where my autofocus misfired." Editor, "I'll take it."

Same photographer, better representation of the story. This image has more impact imo and doesn't look like an error. The scale of the gymnast and the vast emptiness of the stands conveys a sense of reduced importance of these games compared to previous and perhaps the emotional weight of having family & friends stay behind. The pandemic looms over everything.

https://www.gettyimage​s.ca …ens-news-photo/1329973619

The image the Globe used which is on the same page:
https://www.gettyimage​s.ca …pty-news-photo/1329795970

https://www.gettyimage​s.ca …trick%20smith&s​ort=newest

Patrick Smith has a some great stuff in his portfolio.

There are a fair # of artistic shots, including foreground athlete out of focus, stands in focus. Every one of those shots lose their impact because they really do look like mistakes, particularly when taken in isolation. The guy's a good photographer but I think the Globe editor chose the wrong shot for the article. I get what Smith and the editor are going for but for an online publication that can potentially reach millions, wrong photo.

Croasdail wrote in post #19258692
I agree its the story more than the sharpness... but conversely if you are out doing editorial work, you are expected to be able to deliver... not just sharpness, but being able to get the shot at the critical time. You can't be waiting for a lens to hunt for focus. You can't have an image ruined from lens flair. It has to be durable for DAILY use... not just an hour or two on the weekend. It has to obtain focus every time. The image has to be usable, every time. It has to be reliable every shot. A plastic fantastic is not going to cut it. Has nothing to do with pixel peeping... it has to do with having an image every time that you can pixel peep.

When I was working it was not uncommon to have a half million images a year. Most ended up being binned because they were duplicates. Not because the images weren't captured. Thet is why I shot 1D bodies with L lenses. College classes are not about learning to take snapshots for instagram.

Do you have experience with the 18-55 kit lens? Particularly the STM IS variant?

Also regarding sharpness, I remember this post...

aezoss wrote in post #19265563
Yeah to prove the point while capturing the subject, the athlete, is as simple as stopping the lens down.

It's a bad photo that shouldn't have been published. Borderline disrespectful to the skater imo. There's no journalistic merit in erasing a foreground human in favour of a background element that can be reasonably represented by being slightly out of focus.

That is purely subjective and isn't any kind of guideline. A photo with no DOF control of all is boring and bland, and I personally find that photo interesting, and it definitely puts the attention on the stands.

Also whether this was disrespectful or not is up to the skater to decide, not us. That again is subjective.

Your points may be valid, but for you and some others, they may not be for others. There is no definition of a "good media shot", instead it is about creativity and story telling, correct? Those tell stories for sure, despite how it makes you personally feel about the technical merits of the shots. This is what keeps photography interesting.

You feel the shots shouldn't be used, I feel like they are pretty cool and tell a story. You think you are right, I think I am right... there is no right or wrong in those shots since there aren't any globally accepted views on what makes a shot good.