Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Slang Translation

I want some faster glass. This is photography slang, for I want a lens that has a wider range of f-stop capability. Huh? What's that got to do with anything?

F-stop is how you adjust how much light can possibly enter the lens at one time. Think of it as a tourniquet that when cranked down, stops the bleeding and when let loose, allows the blood to flow. The problem is, I haven't got the ability to completely loosen the tourniquet and it's cutting off circulation that I need.

Thanks, Dad. You did this to me. When I was first starting to take pictures, my father got me a 35mm camera and one lens. It was a fast lens. The tourniquet could be almost taken off and thrown away. I could take pictures in poor light, because the lens didn't cut down the flow.

I've got an incredibly good camera, and a not so good lens. The lens is slow. I keep trying to loosen the tourniquet, but I can't and I can't capture photos in poor light because of the lens. There are other settings that I could adjust to cover this issue. But it's not really the best answer, it's a work-around. I'm limited to using only a portion of the capability of this incredibly good camera, because the camera has to compensate for a lousy lens.

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