Return to Normality

Policemen, Pera Hera Festival, Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Photo taken with Nikon 35mm/f1.8 DX standard lens.

© Graham Dew 2010

In 2010 we went on holiday to Sri Lanka, and one of the highlights of the trip was the Pera-Hera festival in Kandy. This is a spectacular parade of musicians, dancers & painted & bejewelled elephants. Held at night, I knew I would need to use a flash to illuminate the procession, as I did not expect any substantial spotlighting to be in place. I wanted to use fill-flash, relying on the small amount of light from burning torches and decorative electric lighting to provide the ambient lighting. The only sensible option seemed was to use a large aperture lens which would allow me to make the most of the limited amount of lighting available from my flash and from background lighting. And so I treated myself (any spending on photo gear is a rare treat) to a new Nikkor 35mm/f1.8 DX lens. This lens is the DX sensor equivalent to the standard 50mm lens in 35mm film terms.

Torch Bearer, Pera Hera Festival, Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Photo taken with Nikon 35mm/f1.8 DX standard lens.

© Graham Dew 2010

My world of photography began back in the early 80’s when I bought my first SLR, an Olympus OM10. As was the way in those days, if a camera came with a kit lens, it would be a 50mm, not the ubiquitous zoom that we get bundled with our cameras today. From the early Leicas in the 1920s onwards, the 50mm was standard issue on 35mm cameras. It was an obvious choice. The fifty was the standard lens, the one manufactured in the millions, and as a consequence was usually the cheapest lens available. It was light, often the smallest lens made by the manufacturer. It was bright, and usually had a maximum aperture of f/1.8. It was very well corrected, because the focal length is easier to design and build than wide-angles below it in focal length and telephotos above. The large aperture combined with the focal length made for a lens that was very easy to focus (manual in those days), and gave the best illumination of the ground glass viewing screens. 

It was interesting to see how people used the 50mm focal length. It is difficult to do exact comparisons between the eye and camera lens, but the view through a 50mm lens corresponds closely with that of the eye – with practice you could keep both eyes open with one eye to the viewfinder and one eye to the surrounding environment. 

Street View, Morocco.

Photo taken with Nikon 50mm/f1.4 AIS standard lens.

© Graham Dew 1991

This ‘normality’ of field of view divides opinions about the standard lens. For many people the normal, undistorted, unstretched, uncompressed view gave a transparency to the lens that suited their subject; people, things, the near distance. Well suited to capturing people in their surroundings, it was the lens of choice for environmental portraiture, and for documentary workers too. Cartier–Bresson claimed to use this lens all the time, and it is clear from looking at the work of many of the greats of photography that the standard lens was used to make the majority of world’s most famous images.

For almost two decades I took all my photos on a Nikon FM2, with a small collection of lenses – a 28, 85 and 50mm lens. All of these lenses are encompassed by my modern 14-42mm Lumix. In those film days, I reckon about 80% of my pictures were taken on the 50, 15% on the 28 and the remaining 5% on the 85mm. However, if my usage is anything to go by, the modern zoom spends most of its time at either end of the focal range, and very little time in the middle. I guess that I am looking for extremes of viewpoint, and that the natural look of 50mm easily gets overlooked. However, the standard lens does offer an extreme in use – that of wide aperture, and in consequence, shallow depth of field. 

Rogue Oats, Barton Farm, Winchester.

Photo taken with Nikon 35mm/f1.8 DX standard lens.

© Graham Dew 2010

Depth of field is a key intrinsic characteristic of photographs. Although painters and illustrators can mimic soft-focus, it is not inherent to their process. In lens based photography there is an element of focus depth in every image made. Used carefully, shallow depth of field can guide the viewer around the picture, change the balance of importance of the picture, and simplify the background to suggest rather than describe.

Whilst shallow depth of field can be a very appealing tool, its biggest drawback is the accuracy of focus needed to get the correct elements sharp. In the old film based days I would rarely use my 50mm at f1.4 (or my 85mm at f2 for that matter) because focussing had to be so precise that inevitably my camera or the subject moved before the shutter was released and the picture taken. Any subject not directly in the centre of the image could not be focussed really accurately – focus and recompose would inevitably give errors for close object. These days auto-focus has moved on tremendously, and modern mirrorless cameras allow accurate focussing anywhere in the image. Moreover, face recognition AF is a technology that really works, quickly and accurately focussing on eyes whilst you can concentrate on composition. Nowadays wide aperture lenses can be used fully open with confidence.

Seaweed, Sennen Beach, Cornwall

Photo taken with Panasonic Lumix 20mm/f1.7 standard lens.

© Graham Dew 2012

When I changed my camera system from Nikon DSLR to micro four thirds, along with the Lumix G3 and kit zoom I bought the 20mm f1.7 Lumix prime lens. Equivalent to a 40mm lens in 35mm film terms, this has all the benefits of the standard lens with a slightly wider field of view, which suits me even better than a ‘50’. It is a great lens for photographing things, a lens to use for stuff that is near, and can separate out the subject from the clutter. The camera feels very small, almost pocketable and very well balanced with this diminutive lens, making it a joy to use. I get the feeling that it may even become my normal lens.

Gawd Bless Yer Ma'am!

Can you see Anything?

I’m too much of a liberal to be a monarchist but I’m grateful for an extra day off work this week, and in general think the Queen has done a reasonable job of the rather peculiar role that she was born to. Can you imagine who might have been able to be President in her place? Without patronage from the political parties or from the landed classes? Without corruption or self-interest? Answers on a postcard please…

So as one of her majesty’s loyal subjects I travelled to London on Sunday to watch the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, where over 1000 boats sailed down the River Thames to accompany the Queen to celebrate her 60 year reign. The last monarch to celebrate such a lengthy reign was Queen Victoria 115 years ago, and it is plausible that we may have to wait as long again until the next diamond jubilee. It’s a shame there was not a visitor guide for this year’s flotilla, so I have prepared a handy cut-out and keep guide for the next one, perhaps in 2127.

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A Visitors Guide to the 2127 Jubilee River Pageant

Getting There

In 2012 we used a train to get to London. I guess in 2127 you will also be using trains as the last drops of petrol will have long been wrung out of the planet and even the rich will not be using cars. Our 09:23 train had its last spare seats filled at Winchester, and many had to teeter and sway for the over an hour. I guess the situation will change by 2127 and there will be no seats at all on standard class tickets, because at the moment I can’t see any increase in the size or frequency of trains. First class will no doubt be wonderfully sumptuous, and affordable by only those sorts who these days use Range Rovers and Mercedes as their commute-to-the-station runabouts. Everyone else will get the opportunity to feel dirty and poor as they are beaten and squeezed, bullet train fashion, into standard class.

Finding a Spot to Stand

Yes, But Where is the River?

If you caught the 09:23 in 2012 you were already an hour late to catch the last free spaces on the walls of the Thames. In 2127 you will have turn up the day before to grab a spot, but it is likely that by then all public spaces will have been sold off to corporate sponsors, as were many of the bridges this year. True, access to these bridges was also granted to invitees of the riparian boroughs, which is much the same but is funded by the public purse. This year there were only three bridges that could be crossed on foot, once you had your bags checked. Judging by the queues these must have been manned by the UK Border Agency practising congestion tactics for this year’s Olympics. Visitors from Winchester are advised that if you want to view the pageant from the North Bank in 2127 then please travel via Oxford to get to a suitable railway terminus. Let’s face it, there’s no point trying to watch the river pageant from the South Bank unless you are right up by the wall. Better to be on the North Bank where the elevations are higher and you can get longer sightlines around the curve of the river.

Meeting Friends

If you would like to meet up with friends and family to view the event please first invite them to your home and travel with them. Any movement along the South Bank was cleverly designed to eject you from the riverside into a confusing maze of roads in the surrounding area, only to be denied access back to where you started. We spent over an hour trying to get from the Tate Modern to meet friends at London Bridge only to end up back at the Tate and even further from the river wall. Our daughter, down from university for the weekend, nearly didn’t complete her rendezvous. One of the great innovations in policing in recent years has been kettling, a method by which the police help ordinary people to make new friends if they share a common interest, such as free movement about the city to visit their families, a situation in which my daughter found herself. It’s a bit like being friended on Facebook, except that you are stuck behind metal barricades and can’t get unkettled. Unless you have a mother who by shear persuasive force can wear down unflappable stone-faced policemen until they become meek little lambs and let you through.

You will naturally meet a lot of new friends at an event like this, especially if you have a marginally better vantage point than they do. People will naturally sidle up to you, become part of your personal space and assume that you are only there to reserve a position for them. It’s all very friendly.

British Rain Needs a British Brolly

Watching the Event 

If you are more than four deep from the wall you won’t be able to see anything, so you need to get extra height. People were, in 2012, standing on bins, benches and dangerously narrow bollards. Flimsy trees and appropriated chairs and tables were pressed into action. It was as though the thought of a thousand small boats had induced some sort of warped Dunkirk spirit and plucky subjects found novel and potentially lethal ways of watching the spectacle.

Is the Queen on that Boat?

We spent about four hours perched on the plinth of an ugly fibreglass anatomical statue outside the Tate. Although far back, the height of the plinth and the slight slope up to the Tate gave us a clear view of the surface of the river. Well, it did when we got there. By the time the flotilla passed us the tide had gone out and the level in the river dropped by two or three meters. Which meant that we saw two-tenths of bugger all. Thank god the Queen was in a tall barge, and we got to see her. As far as we were concerned the flotilla was only made up of six boats. We were amazed to see so many craft in the television news reports later that evening. It looked like a different event.  My advice to spectators in 2127 is to do what the tradesmen did this year; turn up with step ladders and decorator’s platform and get one up on your fellow visitor. Or take along a mini scaffolding set with you. Fortunately, by 2127 global warming will provide you with an extra couple of meters of sea level which should help a little.

Getting Home

Seeing Getting There (above) only in reverse, plus being very cold, very tired, and very wet.