Just because my Nikon D3 can shoot at 11 fps doesn’t mean that I have to use it that way. One shot, one kill. Old school. The only thing that is sure to happen if you use a camera as if it were a machine gun is that you will have to replace your shutter sooner rather than later. So I attended the Shinnecock Powwow at Southampton, N. Y. this weekend with the purpose of taking some portrait photos if possible. I would argue that most photographers would have chosen to use a portrait lens for this purpose, perhaps a Nikon 85mm or 105mm. But I think that the best way, the more difficult way is to use wide angle. Why? Because only with a wide angle can you capture your subject in the context of their natural habitat as it were.
I actually like a certain degree of barrel distortion which may set me apart from other photographers. You have to pay more attention to variables in trying to shoot portraits with wide angle lenses, but I think the results can be spectacular as in the case of “Vendors of the Sacred Stone“. These are the technical details of the photo: Nikon D3, 18mm-35mm AF-D f/3.5-4.5, 18mm, f/11, ISO 500 and 1/400. Most importantly, aperture priority and RAW 14-bit uncompressed!