Focal Length Distribution Around the World

A reader of my Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter had watched my webinar presentation where I talked about the lessons I learned while traveling around the world on an extended trip, using only a single lens for the full trip. They send an inquiry, curious about what the “histogram” distribution of lens focal length used during trip looked like.

I should hasten to point out that the single lens I used during this trip was the Tamron 18-400mm lens (https://bhpho.to/2DPkI3C) on a camera with a 1.6X cropping factor. That translates to a range of about 29mm to 640mm in 35mm (full frame) equivalent focal lengths. So I wasn’t exactly making a big compromise when it came to available focal lengths for my photography by using a single lens.

Below is a histogram chart showing the distribution of focal lengths used, but the chart is admittedly not the easiest to read because of the scale of the data.  So I’ll start with some stats that help illustrate how the lens was put to use.

During the trip I captured a total of 8,342 photos with my digital SLR and single-lens combination. Of those, 2,253 (17%) were captured all the way at the maximum focal length of 400mm. Another 648 (almost 8%) were captured at the minimum focal length of 18mm. So just about one-quarter of all photos captured during my travels made use of the minimum or maximum focal length.

Beyond that the range was somewhat evenly distributed, with a bit more representation at the shorter focal length range compared to middle to long focal lengths.

The distribution is interesting to me, but in retrospect it makes sense. As much as an all-in-one lens such as the 18-400mm lens I was using provides a wide range of focal length options, very often I found myself at the limit. It seems when it comes to lens focal length, we always want either as much zoom as possible or as wide a field of view as possible.

Here’s the histogram chart, which you can click on the chart to see it in a bit more detail:

The presentation that inspired the question was on the subject of “Lessons Learned Around the World with One Lens” after an extended trip in 2019. You can view a recording of that presentation on my Tim Grey TV channel on YouTube here:

https://youtu.be/dOHcN1fzvw4