I get and Love National Geographic Magazine.

Has anyone noticed that the majority of the published photos are taken with wide or superwide angle lenses regardless of subject (except, of course, lions)?

It kind-of made me gravitate toward wide angle lenses in my kit.

-- chris chen (chrischen@msn.com), March 14, 2002

Answers

NG seems to have improved slightly this month.I noticed it going downhill for a year or so.The photographs are a huge improvement on the last few months,in fact I don't recall one good photo in the last issue.

Am I alone in think that NG is nowhere near as good as it was......or am I just getting old?

-- Norman Fisher (normanfisher@hotmail.com), March 14, 2002.

If you squeeze the photography budget, you get what you pay for.

-- Dave Jenkins (djphoto@vol.com), March 14, 2002.

Nope, you're not the only one Norman. The quality of National Geographic has dropped tremendously since the 70's and 80's. I know a Geographic freelance photographer in town, and talking with him on several occasions at the local camera store, he mentioned it has even become a pain or him to shoot for them. Photogs have very few rights to images, too much internal politics to deal with, the assignment budgets are a joke now, and a six-week assignment is considered to be too time- consuming. Hard to believe, especially from a magazine that used to send photogs on assignment for months, even a year or two just to get it right.

Another reason I believe Geographic has dropped in quality is because of the channeling of funds into television, particularly the National Geographic Channel on cable TV. Case in point, the circulation of the magazine has actually been reduced by a considerable amount (I can't remember the exact number, but it was a huge chunk compared to the magazine's peak circulation during the 1980s).

-- Badris (badris@mac.com), March 14, 2002.

The decline in NG is not because of internal politics, cheap editors, etc.

It's because of the current obsession photographers have with Wide and Super Wide angle lenses. They not only give a weird, distorted look to people subjects, they encourage the photographer to look for weird angles to inflict upon the viewer. It's like the photographer is thinking, "I don't know what I like in front of me, so let me cram it all into one piece of film. Oh yeah, and if I snap from this position, it looks more arty". And every week or so, some other company introduces yet another Ultrawide Zoom.

It's kind of made me gravitate toward hating wide angle lenses. Blech!

O.k., enough ranting from me already.

-- Hil (hegomez@agere.com), March 14, 2002.

How does say a 35mm lens differ in distortion (or lack thereof) of a person to a 50mm lens? Of course the 35 includes more in the frame, but beyond that what's the difference? I haven't compared samples from each so I am somewhat ignorant.

-- James (snodoggydogg@hotmail.com), March 14, 2002.

35's not wide. It's almost normal. 50 is a short tele, to some.

21, 24 - that's wide. 17-18 that's super wide. Ugly.

-- Hil (hegomez@agere.com), March 14, 2002.

James - remember that perspective is all a function of distance from the subject. If the 50mm lens makes you back up a step or two to get the framing right, the perspective will improve - or at least look more natural. Slap on a 75mm 'Lux and take three more steps back, and it improves even more. "Up close and personal" works best when it still looks natural and is flattering to the subject. That's my 2 cents, anyway.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), March 14, 2002.

It's because of the current obsession photographers have with Wide and Super Wide angle lenses.

Oh wow, a kindred spirit at last! I thought I was completely alone in thiking this.

My take on the uber-wide is that it is a very easy lens for lazy snappers to use. Focus? Nah - everything'll be in focus. Compose? Nah - everything'll be in shot. Tilt? Nah - Saint Winogrand has blessed it.

Of course, when everyone, everywhere, in every publication is doing this, then it rapidly becomes a boring, monotonous, mindlessly confirmist cliche.

Hence my disappointment with NG of late. Back in the 70s and 80s they had photogs and editors who knew how to mix wide with normal and tele. Now its all uber-wide or 4000mm. :?(

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), March 14, 2002.

Thanks for the, er, perspective. : ) Yes, I have seen comparison shots between really wide angle lenses and say a 50, and it is pretty hideous. Wides have their place though, of course.

-- James (snodoggydogg@hotmail.com), March 14, 2002.

"It's because of the current obsession photographers have with Wide and Super Wide angle lenses...etc."

These things just go in cycles. When I was in journalism graduate school (c. 1985) the obsession was with 180 and 300 f/2.8s. In one critique session I finally launched a tirade against everyone standing 30 feet from their subjects for closeups. "Where is the intimacy?", I cried.

Interestingly, I had two pictures selected for the Family of Man 2 collection for 2001. Both were shot with the 21. None of my 28/35/90 pix made it.

Did my superwide just 'impress' people with its perspective? Or did it make for better images? Or do I just handle it better than the longer lenses?

"If the 50mm lens makes you back up a step or two to get the framing right, the perspective will improve - or at least look more natural. Slap on a 75mm 'Lux and take three more steps back, and it improves even more."

Hmmm - how does backing away from the subject square with Robert Capa's dictum that "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough."?

If you are looking for a "portrait" in some PPA/high school "ideal" yearbook sense, this works. But I see, both in my work and others, many revealing pictures of individuals (read portrait - small "p") shot with everything from 21-300mm - a lot of them with lenses 35mm and wider.

Incidentally, most of the Nat. Geo. photographers who use Leica-M (Harvey, Franklin, Webb) tend to shoot with a 35 f/1.4, with 28 and 50 for occasional variety (Abbas pulls out the 21 fairly often). But it IS true that the Canikon shooters now usually carry the 20-35 and 180 or 80-200.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), March 14, 2002.

Wide is in fashion. So are slow-shutter speed shots where the people in the cafe are blurry. Double exposures of the waiters serving sangria in Gibraltar . . .

I think the magazine is desperate to appeal to non-photographers: by featuring shots that don't look as if they have come from a point and shoot.

The same trends obtain in travel and feature photography in other magazines and newspapers, too.

-- Preston Merchant (merchant@speakeasy.org), March 14, 2002.

Too much wide angle close ups of people! Sick of it. How about some creative like the old Eugene Smith and HCB.

NG AIM: Get as close as possible and get as much into the photo as possible. Shoot as many as you can so we can come out with at least 1 decent shot!

-- Kristian (leicashot@hotmail.com), March 14, 2002.

i personally find the distortion from the super wides distracting and some what of an in your face type of photography that does not jell with a nature magazine

-- greg mason (gmason1661@aol.com), March 14, 2002.

Right, Preston. My wife subscribes to a couple of fancy cooking magazines, and the food isn't in focus in half the photos.

-- John (johnfleetwood@hotmail.com), March 14, 2002.

I'm a bit surprise at all this! To call NG photographers lazy is absurd. And I find their use of wide angles on the whole to be very sophisticated (OK yes, I'm a wide-user too). I went through the telephoto influence in J-school too and soon found the elimination of environment and simplicity of the photograph to be rather boring and facile. Nobody will be "right" on this issue but I can't think of any of the "greats" (non sports or wildlife shooters of course) who relied predominantly on long glass. And that includes HCB etc. Can't think of a single telephoto shot of his.

-- dave (lists@daveyoder.com), March 14, 2002.

Which brings us back to . . . the good ol' 50mm.

.

-- Terry (tcdvorak@aol.com), March 14, 2002.

I suppose if you think the NG photographers are so incompetant it should be no problem for you to get your superior photojournalism published there.

-- Pete Su (psu_13@yahoo.com), March 14, 2002.

... don't assume NG always uses the "best" photographers. There's an awful lot of politics and intrigue going on in there, just like any other large bureauocracy (wrong spelling I know!)

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), March 15, 2002.

What is the "best" photographer anyway? They use outstandingly good photographers and they still regularly get it right.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), March 15, 2002.

I read on their site that the standard day rate they pay is $375 plus I assume expenses. Works out to just slightly over $45 per hour based on an 8 hour day. Not exactly a fortune in todays market when a good mainframe tech consultant gets $60-80 an hour. You often get what you pay for. I remember a guy who used to say 'you pay peanuts, you get monkeys'. Or the Dilbert cartoon where the boss says there are other things besides money to motivate people and the poor slob says 'yeah, like stupidity'. Good luck.

-- Don (wgpinc@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

(a) Someone once said here on our forum that nearly all pictures shot for the NG were using a 24 anyhow, and

(b) My favourite saying (I heard elsewhere) is that "The Leica M is a wide angle camera anyhow!" :)

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), March 16, 2002.

You can get most of what you want to shoot with a 35mm, 50mm, and a 90mm... There was a thread on here earlier where someone posted some pics of Afganistan. They were ok, but each was shot with a 28mm lens so the collection as a whole really lost it for me.

And If you really want to get extreme you can do most of what you want to shoot with a 50mm...

-- Russell Brooks (russell@ebrooks.org), March 18, 2002.

Name five truly memorable, "I'll never forget," for-the-record-books photos you've seen in the National Geographic in the last ten years. Heck, make it 20. I don't think "great photography" is what the National Geographic is about. The people who shoot for the National Geographic are highly skilled, extremely competent professionals who know how to expose film perfectly and cover a story. The pictures they bring back illustrate the text very well. But the National Geographic as a source of "great photography"? I don't think so.

-- George T. (davecasman@yahoo.com), March 18, 2002.