I switched to at least one lens and nil expectations on a journey task. My photos have not been this sincere in years.
I’ve a confession. For years, I’ve been telling readers and workshop attendees to shoot with a single prime lens. Learn to see at one focal size, I’d say. Use your toes, not your zoom. Understand what 35mm or 50mm really appears like earlier than you begin accumulating glass. Sound recommendation, I assumed. But in all honesty, I wasn’t actually doing it myself.
In equity, once I began out within the Nineteen Eighties, most of us had no selection. You bought one lens as a result of one lens was all you can afford – sometimes a 50mm (the nifty fifty). And you realized to see inside that body, to maneuver your physique slightly than twist a zoom ring. You realized to anticipate the place an image was earlier than you raised the digital camera to your eye. Then, through the years, the package bag bought heavier, and the seeing bought lazier. I think I’m not alone in that.
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After that experience, I found myself reaching for my Fujifilm GFX 50R with the GF 45mm f/2.8 (roughly a 35mm equivalent) almost exclusively. It just stayed on the camera. I liked knowing exactly where I needed to stand to realise what I was seeing, without fiddling or second-guessing.
So when Fujifilm released the GFX100RF with its fixed 35mm lens (a 28mm equivalent), it felt like something had been made specifically for the way I now work. Everything I needed in a smaller, lighter package that freed me to do what I love most: wander. The flâneur had found his groove.
Here’s what nobody tells you about working with one lens. It doesn’t limit your photography. It limits your indecision. And indecision, far more than any lack of equipment, is what kills most pictures before they’re ever taken. So try it. One lens. Leave the bag at home and just walk until you get your eye in.