Exercise 10. Focal lengths and different viewpoints

This will be my second attempt today and completing this exercise, I have spent quite a while thinking of somewhere in Sohar where there is little distraction and my final images will be uncluttered and clean.  I am going to see if the fish souk situated at the far end of the corniche will give me the space I need to use both my 55-300mm lens and 18-105mm. It has a large car park outside to the front and to the side/rear also.  I may be able to use these spaces to alter the perspective of the image when I change my lens.
Just returned and looked closely at my images, 2 of which I have added below.


Equipment Used
Nikon D7000
55 - 300mm lens
18 - 105mm lens
Aperture Priority
ISO 125


On reflection, not a good subject to choose. The souk is a long, low modern building, shaped as the traditional Dhow, and to fit the frame tightly, as required it was necessary to  frame the souk horizontally.  Both images to me seem flat.   

Fig. 1     65mm     55 - 300mm lens

Fig. 2     42mm    18 - 105mm

To take the second image I moved forward quite a distance and positioned myself to the left, to enable the  fitting of the subject to the frame to be similar to the one above.  

The perspective in the second image is very slightly different, the two sets of (4) windows, between the arched doorways are smaller and seem much further away.  The flag poles on the roof are also much much further away and appear shorter.

The wide angle lens here elongates the frame.

My thoughts on this exercise  

I was feeling quietly confident that this exercise would show changes in perspective to a greater extent, but on reflection the differences in the two images are very slight.  

• In Fig 1. where there are a number of men in the scene, there is a sense of life, one Omani returning to his vehicle empty handed, the other two, loading their purchase of the day into the rear of their Toyota truck.  
• Fig 2. could be anywhere in the world, no connection at all with Oman.
• Fig 2. the vehicle and the main entrance are now centrally placed in the frame.
• This type of construction, of which there re many in Oman, lends itself to a wide angle lens and shot. 
•  I wanted an image that was free from unnecessary clutter on the periphery, using the telephoto lens in Fig 1. gave me the desired fit to frame photo I wanted.  If I had moved further back, which I was able to do I would have filled the photo with unwanted clutter in the image. 
• The composition is making good use of the Rule of Thirds, in Fig. 1, there are four strong focal points, where the imaginary lines would intersect. 

Therefore I feel that if I had chosen a more compact subject, I would have achieved much more rewarding results.  

I now see that I have more understanding of perspective and have learnt that: to change both the lens and the position of viewpoint, results in larger changes in perspective.