After hearing the 3rd alarm, I thought I might want to take a look. I didn't have the scanner on, so when I launched my iPhone Scanner app - I heard quite a bit of chatter about an engulfed house fire just a few blocks from where I lived.
I jumped in the car and went to take a look. Figured I might get a few decent shots and see what was going on. Well, I had just shot a Pirates game that day and guess what? All I had was my Canon 1D Mark II with my 300mm f/2.8 lens. Not bad if I was going to be kept 500 feet away. But, this IS my hometown and I am usually allowed pretty close to these types of events.
So... I had WAY TOO MUCH lens. I only had one choice, try and get a lot of "in your face" shots of the firemen. In fact, I was too close to the fire to even get any shots with the actual fire. I posted a few of them on Facebook and I got a pretty surprising response. Turns out that most people thought they gave a very different perspective on the event.
I guess this goes to show that sometimes having the wrong equipment just might make us think differently about what we're shooting and we'll end up with a decent outcome if we just go with it. Trust me, I could have easily just put the camera back in the car and became a "sidewalk-watcher" like everyone else.
Here are a few shots to show you what I was restricted to. These are not cropped. They are full frame. That's what makes them interesting, I think.
So, I'm not longer one to complain when I forget to take my long lens off my camera (or forget to put it on, for that matter) - I am just going to interpret what I see and I might just be surprised with the outcome.
* Yes, I know these are crappy photos - technically. They are noisy, maybe not the absolute correct white balance... but that's NOT the point. The point is to not let the obvious obstacles (no/low light, wrong camera body, wrong lens, people in your way, etc) get in your way of shooting. You never know what you will end up with at the end of the day.
