On impulse, I brought the Reto Ultra Wide and Slim on our vacation in Germany. I planned to bring two cameras — my Nikon Df for color and my Pentax IQZoom 170SL with eight rolls of Kodak T-Max 100 for b/w work. But the tiny RUWS was already out and loaded with Fujicolor 200, and it weighs next to nothing. I also had room for two more rolls of film in my film box. So I put two more rolls of Fujicolor 200 into it, and slipped it and the RUWS into my carry-on with my other gear.
The RUWS’s 21mm lens let me create some good drama. This is the massive Cologne Cathedral. When I framed this shot, the viewfinder didn’t include this much sky. But the viewfinder isn’t accurate; this is what the lens actually saw. I rather liked having all of this sky in the image, so I didn’t crop it out.
Here’s a more conventional looking-up view of the Cathedral. I hoped that 21mm would be wide enough that I could get the whole Cathedral into the frame, but no, I still couldn’t back up far enough.
The RUWS had obvious application when even the 28mm wide end of the zoom lens on my Nikon Df wasn’t wide enough. Sans-Souci was the summer home of Frederick the Great. It’s in Potsdam, which is southwest of Berlin. The RUWS let me capture the entire huge terraced approach to the house
The sprawling one-story structure is short and wide.
Moving in close to the building, the RUWS exaggerated the central part of the structure nicely.
We visited Linz, a little town on the Rhein River. The town center has been well preserved and is full of buildings from the medieval era.
The RUWS was useful in capturing depth on the town’s narrow streets.
You’d think that the RUWS would be terrific for capturing sweeping vistas, but you end up with gobs of sky and foreground. I’m learning that it’s better to move in close to large subjects, and let the RUWS capture lots of context.
Lots of touring boats cruise the Spree River in Berlin. The RUWS let me capture this boat as the primary subject, while also showing plenty of the modern surrounding city.
St. Nicholas Church, having been completed in about 1230, is in a tie with another nearby church as the oldest in Berlin. It’s in a small plaza and there wasn’t enough room to back up to fit it into a frame with my Nikon Df at 28mm. I had to tilt the Reto back, creating an odd angle, but by golly the whole church fit.
I didn’t make the best images of my life on these three rolls of film, but some of them were pleasing and I had fun with the RUWS.
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