Sometimes You Really Do Need the Best

Bald Eagle in Flight

Copyright Philip N. Jenkins, 2021

 

In my previous post I wrote that most of us do not need the latest and greatest cameras and lenses to make the photographs we want to make. Elliott Erwitt and Henri Cartier-Bresson made most of their iconic photographs with Leicas and 50mm lenses. Each man refined his vision and simplified his tools to express that vision.

But photography is a big tent, and some types of photography call for specialized tools. Cartier-Bresson and his 50mm lens would certainly have found many interesting things to photograph at a football game, but might have had some difficulty with the on-field action. That's the province of the guys with the long lenses and high-speed motor drives. That's just common sense. It's not rocket science.

My brother Phil, however is a rocket scientist. He retired a few years ago as a GS15, the highest level in the civil service, after a career spent working on rocket designs in Huntsville, Alabama. But his avocation is wildlife photography, especially birds, and for that he has a Canon R5 and long, fast lenses. He and his wife Erin, whom he infected with his enthusiasm, pay regular visits to marsh areas teeming with birds and wildlife that they have discovered near Huntsville.

I greatly admire Phil's photographs and love looking at them. I couldn't do the work he does, and if I could, I couldn't do it with the equipment I have. But that's Phil's niche in  photography and he has the tools for it. I have my own niche and the appropriate kit for the things I do.

Phil posts frequently on the Fred Miranda site and has given me permission to share some of his photos with you, which I will be doing from time to time.

In photography as in racing, it is, as the English say, "Horses for courses."

 

Photograph copyright 2021, Philip N. Jenkins. Text copyright 2021, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone