Deciding what lens to take when you head out is not always easy. But in this debate, few talk about the parts that make us better photographers. Today I’ll do just that…

Two worlds — Two types of photos.

Edits of today’s photos were done with Filmist, Silver, the new Elegance 5 and Natural HDR.

We thought it was about quality.

Maybe it was in part because early Zooms were often poor. Especially cheap ones. I remember an old cheap Sigma 70-300 I used in the late 90’s. One day, the plastic barrel just unscrewed and fell off in the dirt – A far cry from the quality Sigma Lesnes we see today.

When I started my career in earnest, I invested a lot in Zooms for my wedding, getting a Canon 79-200 2.8 and a Canon 24-70 2.8. The first was a great lens that I used until a few years ago. The second was fine, but soft compared to primes.

But these days, a sharp prime like the 12-60 in this video or a Sony 24-105 can be had for under $1000, and they are clean, sharp lenses. So quality is less of an issue in today’s world.

Magic vs Price…

Sometimes you need bokeh. Sometimes not. Primes are better for bokeh, but price does not always follow magic. Some of my most expensive lenses spend the most time on the shelf.

It’s pretty easy to get a bad Zoom. I usually don’t bother with a Zoom that’s not in at least that constant F4 Pro category. 2.8 zooms are great, but heavy, not to mention the cost. And of course, there are cheap Zoom exceptions.

Primes, on the other hand, are usually faster and look good on nearly anything. Even cheap primes like the 40mm plastic fantastic kit lens on Nikon cameras are actually great lenses. Some are sharper than others. But they handle like primes.

Sure, there are expensive primes. But no one really needs an 85mm 1.2. It’s just cool to have. The 85 1.8 is smaller and cheaper and does everything you need. In fact, it’s often a game-changer, and the longer lenses will transform even your street photos, not just portraits.

Most basic prime lenses in the 1.8 to f2 range in full frame or crop sensor are good. You can often pick up great primes for cheap and in vintage glass, a manual focus Minolta Rokkor 50 1.4 or the like gives amazing results for super low cost.

Zooms vary widely in cost. But there are very good f4 zooms easily found, lightly used in the 500-600 USD range, like the Leica zoom I used today.

The truth is that the lens that inspires the most is often not the most expensive and well-reviewed. Your thing of beauty might be an old Helios 44 for its swirly bokey, or a used compach 24-105 that is small and lets you fly free.

The real Secret of Lenses

I usually take 1 to a max of 3 lenses when I head out. So a lot of thought often goes into it. I think that planning gives better results and vision than a huge bag of everything. But which lenses?

You can often have 3 quality primes for about the same price and weight as one good zoom. Say a 25, a 50, and an 85. And it’s faster glass.

Then again… A great zoom, especially a compact f4 zoom, can be a world in itself, as we saw in the video, and you can do a little of everything.

I stated where I stand in the video. But in the end, I think having a Zoom for when you need it is useful. You just have to decide which one and where it belongs in your kit.

The real secret of a lens is not only the look it gives the photo. But how it make you feel using it and how it help you be creative? Because if you don’t create photos with soul, they won’t even stand out from AI slop.

A lens should make you feel, just like your photos should make viewers feel – Gavin Seim

Masking has come a long way in LR and C1. Today I’ll pit them against each other. But I’ll also show you the best ways to use masks, how I use Elegance 5 and why masks are actually old school.

My little Masking master Class…

Get Elegance 5 here. Also check out tools I used like Filmist 2 and Natural HDR 5.

The least understood thing in Photograph…

Is TONE! The great Ken Whitmire drilled that into me years ago and it changed everything. For more on that come to my next Shadow Hackers workshop.

Tone is what created separation and depth. It’s Luma value, color values and the way shadow plays with light. It’s the oldest and least understood thing that separates master from amateurs.

Digital kids think all this is new in Lightroom and Capture One. But all that;’s new is the tools available to do it fast. What we’re doing is the same stuff we did in the darkroom.

The little Mask that Could

Masks are just a way to control tone. Not unlike burning and dodging in Photoshop, the saturation brush or the curves tool. Speed masks are just the most effective way to manage them.

There’s a reason I’ve spend years now refining this process. Because if you don’t use Speed-Masks, you might as well skip masking in these apps and do it the old way manually in Photoshop. Yes it’s that slow to do these complex meshed masks manually.

The keep is creating masks combos that direct the tone the way you want and making sure they are dialed in well so you can use them on any image. That’s what I’ve done in Elegance 5 but you can do this your own way as well.

But is Photoshop still better?

Yes and no. For a general workflow Lightroom, Raw or Capture One are better because you can edit all images from sate with the same process and consistency. A film preset, then a speed-mask, then copy the setting to similar images.

In Photoshop pr another layer style editing you get more control. More manual, but more. You can paint in details and move tone. I automate this in PS as well with looks like Alchemist actions and Lumist. T he image refined in Photoshop is MORE refined.

So while it’s fair to say Photoshop is more refined it does not mean it’s better for every image but also you should not ignore it.

In the end and what I hope you see from this video is that shadow and tone are the important factors. These tools are just how to there faster and better.

Gavin Seim

I’m always rooting for competition to Lightroom. It’s good for us. But Adobe seems to be having fun keeping Capture One behind. Why are they a big deal?

New Lightroom Masks are great. But there’s a flaw…

Check out my Elegance speed mask pack and Natural HDR 5

A Battle of Two heavy Hitting Apps

In my Annual Lightroom VS Capture One review, we saw that both are great, but Lightroom gives a lot more for the money. But we are all tired of Adobe’s price hikes and deaf ears. So competition is good.

But AI masking and the ability to automate it in Lightroom is huge, and it just got way better. Every time Capture One does an update, acting like it’s a huge deal, Adobe pushes something new like a cat playing with a mouse.

Sadly, Capture One is falling even further behind in Ai masking. Let’s not even talk about generative fill tools in Lightroom today because I prefer natural images myself. But I do think this competition is good for us, and I’m thankful Capture One is making Adobe work.

You can Ai mask in both apps.

Yes, they are both good. But I make my Elegance Mask pack for both. Speed Masks are essential and let us automate these increasingly complex groups of lawyers. Without them, you might as well go into an app like Photoshop because it will often be just as fast.

The problem is that there are WAY more mask options in Lightroom. So while I am able to make powerful tools in Capture One, Lightroom keys letting us do more, as we see in this big new Landscape mask update that does way more than landscapes.

Why are masks so slow?

There is an Achilles’ heel.

Toward the end of the video, we will talk about the downside. Lightroom masks bring the app to a complete crawl, and years later, they still have not fixed it.

Lightroom is not alone. The more mask features Capture One has, the slower it gets, also. Something is wrong with how they are using system resources in these, because a bunch of active layers in Photoshop work just fine. But Ai masks seem to slow the system with every layer you add.

I’ll share some ideas for how to keep things moving fast despite the masks being a resource hog, but it may be that the first one of these apps to resolve the speed issue will take the lead.

Tell me what you think in the comments – Gavin Seim