Last weekend I went for another kind of city tour in Heidelberg. The goal was to not use any wide-angle lens, as one so often uses for architecture and city photography. I limited myself to a quite long prime lens, which forced a new view on the city and buildings. In the result I was forced to look more on the details.

For this tour I only took my 85mm prime lens and my camera with APSC sensor (Canon 60D) with me. This resulted in an equivalent focal length of about 135mm, which is quite the departure from my typical city tour kit. Normally I would make sure to take the widest focal length with me and preferable a zoom lens if I come in a situation where I want to shoot the details.

With this combination I recognized two different departures from my normal style of city photography. On the one hand I had to take a better look on details, as in most cases it was not possible to step back enough to get the complete object in the frame. On the other hand, the compression of the high focal length helped to convey the narrowness of the streets in the old town of Heidelberg.

Better eye for details

Compressed streets