Exploring the wonders of creation through a 50mm lens...and other lenses too.

When I was a kid I worked at a grocery store called Russ’s Market. It was about a half mile from my house and I started there the same week the local newspaper quit doing the afternoon edition, which I had delivered, along with most of my siblings as well, throughout middle school and junior high. There weren’t too many places keen on employing 15-year-olds in the mid 1990’s, but somehow the grocery store was able to skirt regulations to some degree or other and as long as I didn’t work past 7pm or more than 20 hours in a single week, I was allowed to be gainfully employed receive a regular paycheck. I bagged groceries, ran the checkout, mopped floors, cleaned restrooms, brought in carts from the parking lot, and generally did whatever odd tasks needed doing on any given shift. Over the years I worked my way up the ranks a bit, eventually taking care of the dairy cooler, the customer service counter, and even the video rental department–a corner of the store where people could rent VHS tapes for a couple of bucks. I worked there for nearly nine years, paying my way through college and making some good friends along the way.

One of the coveted jobs at that grocery store was managing the Garden Tent, a pop-up operation that appeared every spring and lasted through the middle of summer before disappearing altogether with nary a trace of its existence to be found. I knew nothing about plants, flowers, shrubberies, soil, or anything related to gardening but volunteered to take care of the tent every opportunity I had since it meant I could spend my shift outdoors watering flowers and chatting with customers and, most importantly, wear ratty jeans and worn-out sneakers instead of the usual khakis-and-blue-shirt uniform. I don’t miss much about working at the grocery store but if I had to make a list, the Garden Tent would be on it.

When I bike to work I usually ride past a grocery store at roughly the halfway mark, and like clockwork there is a Garden Tent that shows up each spring just like the one I used to work at back in the day. One morning in late April I decided to stop and see if I could use all the flowers, along with the morning sun, to get an interesting picture. I knew I wanted to get a backlit image of one of the flowers…but which one? And what else should be in the frame? What angle should I shoot it from? What about other light sources aside from just the sun? So many questions to consider, and since I was en route to my office I didn’t want to spend more than a minute or two pondering the possibilities. I took several pictures as I wandered around the outskirts of the tent, and then realized I could make use of a trick that I have really come to appreciate more and more: taking advantage of the sun reflecting off of passing cars. While the overhead sun gave this orange and yellow flower a brilliant glow, it was an automobile driving on the nearby road that provided the bright yellow circle of light that adds a much-needed dynamic element to the image. That added touch, the pièce de résistance, is what transforms this from an ordinary image into something really special and I’m glad I got the chance to take this photo.

I don’t have a clue what these flowers are, but I do know that they are small. Very small. Each of the little white pods you see here is about 1/4inch from front to back, and this plant was absolutely full of similar clusters like the one in the picture. When I saw them I immediate knew I wanted to take a picture but I wasn’t really sure how to go about making that picture look particularly interesting. I mean, it’s a bunch of white flowers. What am I trying to get you, the viewer, to look at? Is the subject of this image the whole bunch of flowers or just one single flower? Where should I focus: the flowers in front, the flowers on the side, the green stalk holding everything up, or something else? And, perhaps most importantly when shooting close-up, what aperture should I use to get the right depth of field?

So many questions, so little time. Seriously. I didn’t want to spend an hour contemplating all of this! I just wanted to take a picture and get back to doing other things.

I quickly decided that I wanted to get the frontmost flower in focus, and shot with an aperture of f/22 in order to err on the side of caution and also make sure enough of the flowers were sharp and easy to see. And even at f/22 the depth of field was still pretty shallow, enough that the front of the flower in the middle is tack sharp but the back is not despite the entire flower being smaller than my little fingernail. I am pretty happy with how this turned out and I quite like that you can see right down the middle of the flower in front.

Editing this image in Lightroom proved surprisingly easy, thanks to the new Select Subject feature that debuted about six months ago. Originally the sky was kind of a dull gray but I wanted to add a bit of vibrance to the image, so I clicked the “Select Sky” option and…well, it really was that simple. It immediately gave me an editing mask for just the sky, and a few quick adjustments of the White Balance slider gave me the final result you see here. Note that I’m not shilling for Lightroom here, but as someone who has been using that program for about six years I continue to be impressed with how well it fits my particular workflow.

This picture shares a couple similarities with the Goose photo I posted in mid-May, in that it doesn’t seem like an especially complicated picture to take but it required a bit more than what you might think. As you might have guessed, the setting for this was none other than Theta Pond where about 90% of my images are taken, and on this particular day I had my camera with me but nothing specific in mind for a photo. It was just me and my usual combination of D750 and 105mm f/2.8 lens out for a stroll, and for the most part I really didn’t see anything that caught my eye as photo-worthy. No big deal though: the weather was great and it was a good day to be out for a stroll, and sometimes that’s all you want or need.

As luck would have it (which is not uncommon for a lot of my Theta Pond photos) I came across this squirrel chewing an acorn as he made his (her? I have no idea.) way up the trunk. Even though there are students and pedestrians perpetually patrolling the perimeter of the pond, the animals are still fairly skittish and don’t like it if you come too close. But this squirrel, kind of like the goose from last month, must have figured I was not much of a threat. After reaching a branch about six feet off the ground he paused and just kind of looked at me for a few seconds. I grabbed my camera, quickly checked that I was shooting as wide as possible, and fired off a couple shots. Maybe a dozen in total; I can’t exactly remember and I don’t really want to load up Lightroom to check. Initially I was just thrilled at the idea of getting any shots of this squirrel, but after half a moment I came to my senses and focused right on his eye hoping that even one of the shots would turn out.

And one did! Not only is the squirrel’s eye in focus, but the rest of the image works pretty well from a compositional standpoint. The tree branch going upwards diagonally through the frame is distinct and separate from the animal’s fur, which I chalk up to more of a happy accident than careful planning. I like that the squirrel looks as though he is on the edge of skittering away, which lends a sense of tension and pent-up energy to the photo. And the diagonal stance draws your eye naturally to his, while the depth of field is just shallow enough to get the important parts of his face in focus while the rest of him gently fades away. For a picture that had no planning whatsoever, this turned out really well and is a good reminder to me that macro lenses are good for more than just macro photography.

Any idea what this is? Go ahead and guess, I’ll wait.

Personally I think it looks like some kind of alien life form, or perhaps a poisonous plant from a sci-fi movie just waiting to release toxic fumes on our band of unsuspecting heroes. Or maybe it’s the fabled jewel at the end of the rainbow, a yellow bulb of replenishing life force for a famished warrior at the end of an arduous trek across the desert.

Or…it’s entirely possible that this is just a close-up picture of a Black Cotton plant, shot in early Spring with a bright overhead sun. The world may never know. Or maybe the world will know, since that’s exactly what it is :) I was walking through the garden just west of the Atherton hotel on the Oklahoma State University campus when I saw this plant with rich purple leaves accented by tiny yellow flower buds, and thank goodness I had my D750 and 105mm f/2.8 macro lens with me because it ended up being a really cool photo opportunity.

I normally use autofocus for most of my photography, but that was a little tricky here since there were so many little wisps and whirls in the flower bud that my camera didn’t really know what to focus on. I decided to give manual focus a try which seemed a little tricky given the extremely shallow depth of field, but the results ended up looking pretty good. What really does it for me in this picture are the out-of-focus yellow spots on the right side. They add a really nice sense of depth that was missing in some of the other versions of this image that I took from more of a head-on perspective, and help reinforce the otherworldly appearance of this little flower bud.

This is one of my favorite kinds of pictures to take–the kind that comes out of nowhere, grabs you by surprise, and turns into something unique, fun, and unexpected. This is exactly what you probably think: a single piece of popcorn. Nothing special, and yet, it is kind of special. My wife and I are huge fans of Star Trek and popcorn*, and it’s not uncommon for me to whip up a batch of the latter while watching the former on any given evening after the kids are in bed and our normal obligations are wrapped up for the day. (Or just postponed until tomorrow, which does tend to happen maybe a bit more often than I care to admit.) I don’t usually see popped kernels with this level of roundness and uniformity, so instead of eating this one I decided to save it until after the show was over to I could get a close-up photo.

The setting here was pretty basic: I put my camera on the coffee table, stacked some pillows on the ground, set the kernel on the pillows, and used Live View to compose the shot and get my focus just right. I tried a few different apertures but settled on f/22 which, combined with ISO 100, meant I needed a whopping 15-second exposure. Motion was not an issue and lighting was kind of dark but the final shot turned out really well and I hardly had to do any cropping at all to get it to what you see here.

I think what I really like about this picture is the sense of scale and familiarity, but also seeing the familiar in a different light. Most people recognize a piece of popcorn and can easily tell that’s what this is, but most people (at least in my estimation) haven’t really looked at a single piece of popped corn up close and personal like this. The intricate textures, the network of valleys, the subtle colorations and gradients as they shift from light to dark…it all adds up to a fun way of looking at something completely ordinary from an entirely different perspective. I must admit when I got my macro lens I never thought I would be using it to take shots of a single kernel of popcorn, but here we are. And I’m glad for it :)

*Popcorn recipe that I have used for years:

2/3 cup dry popcorn kernels. I prefer Orville Redenbacher’s

1/3 cup refined coconut oil. (If oil is solid, add it to the kernels and then microwave for 30 seconds to melt the oil.)

Pre-heat 10-quart pot on medium high for 10 minutes. Leave the cover on while heating.

Add kernels and oil to pan. Cover, and shake vigorously every 20 seconds or so.

When finished popping, pour into a big bowl and add a dash of salt.

This picture right here is one of the reasons I bought a macro lens. I have always enjoyed taking pictures of flowers with a set of close-up filters on my 50mm lens (longtime Weekly Fifty readers probably know this already) but to be able to get shots of flowers with an actual macro lens is a whole other experience entirely. Some of the first pictures I took with my close-up filters looked similar to this one, but they were much more difficult to shoot due to the fussy nature of filters compared to a true macro lens. Now I’m able to frame my shot and focus on whatever I want, without trying to move my camera back and forth with a +10 or +4 filter attached to the front and hope that the thing I want to be in focus actually resides within the narrow plane of focus allowed by the filter.

I know it sounds a little odd to describe, but if you have ever used a set of close-up filters you know what I’m talking about. To be fair, they are a great way to experience macro photography without spending a lot of money, but it is nice to have a real macro lens :)

I shot this at our neighbor’s house on the recommendation of my wife, who suggested we go down to our neighbor’s house to take some macro pictures when she saw that their flower garden next to the sidewalk was in full bloom. It was sunny and a bit breezy when we walked over there but we got some great results through teamwork: she blocked the wind as much as she could, and held the flower steady while I took some pictures. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going for and neither was my wife, but both of us knew that we didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to photograph these flowers up close. I tried some that were straight-on and some from the side, and this ended up being my favorite of the bunch. I like that it’s kind of a three-quarters view so you get a sense of depth and dimension, and the yellows and reds just explode off the screen with a sense of life and vibrancy that you can only get at this time of year. I had a great time taking this picture and I’m looking forward to many more like it :)

It might not seem like there’s a whole lot to this picture, but in a lot of ways it represents the culmination of many years of practice, patience, and education.

But it’s a goose, right? I mean, how complicated could this picture possibly be? The answer is, a lot more than you might think.

Theta Pond, on the OSU campus, is inhabited by geese pretty much year-round. Only in the coldest months of winter will you not find geese swimming or otherwise milling about, but despite their ubiquity they do tend to keep a safe distance when it comes to pedestrians and passers-by. Despite seeing geese almost every time I go for a walk around the pond, I have only a handful of good pictures of them–even when I use my 70-200 f/2.8 zoom lens. And none of my geese pictures are up close and personal like the one you see above, mostly because the geese just don’t let people get very close. There’s a host of other elements that have to be line up just right too: lighting, wind, pedestrians, other geese, wayward squirrels, and even some ducks that like to cause trouble for their avian cousins. What this all boils down to is the simple fact that despite having a near-constant presence of geese at Theta Pond, getting a picture like this turns out to be fairly difficult.

I was walking near the pond in early April when, as is not uncommon, I happened upon a goose just sort of chilling on the sidewalk in the afternoon sun. I had my Nikon D750 and 105mm macro lens with me, but I didn’t think I would have much luck with a picture since these situations usually result in the goose taking leave of the situation long before I can get a shot that I like. This time, however, things were a bit different. I knelt down and crept close to the goose…and it didn’t move. It just eyed me cautiously, but with a sense of curiosity as well. I put my camera in Live View so I could hold it about a foot off the ground with the tile-screen facing upward while I slowly closed the distance between me and the bird. I took a couple of pictures, almost holding my breath thinking that the goose would hiss at me and fly away at any second. And yet it remained.

I kept taking pictures while slightly adjusting the aperture and changing my own angle of view so as to catch a glint of sunlight in the goose’s eye. The goose just sat there, unfazed by me and my camera, and let me go about my business for a precious few more seconds. Soon it decided it had enough of my camera shenanigans and got up to relocate while leaving me to contemplate my good fortune. This was my favorite picture of the batch, and even thought I shot it at a fairly wide aperture of f/4 the depth of field remains well-controlled, and I like that the front part of the bird’s beak is just slightly out of focus. It adds a sense of depth that was not present in some of my other shots.

Bonus: If you click on the picture to load the original full-size version on Flickr and zoom way, way in on the eye you can actually see a reflection of me kneeling down on the sidewalk to get the shot :)

In case you’re keeping track of these sorts of things (and if not, I don’t blame you since I barely am) this is the first 50mm photo I’ve had on Weekly Fifty all year. My 2013 self would likely respond with righteous incredulity, but my goal for this blog from day one was to be a tool that I could use to learn and grow as a photographer—with or without a 50mm lens. And it just so happens that after getting a true macro lens, after shooting with close-up filters for so many years, almost immediately opens your eyes to a boat-load of new photographic opportunities suddenly available. Hence the last four months of Weekly Fifty pictures :) However, that doesn’t mean the old tried-and-true Nifty Fifty is suddenly irrelevant. Far from it! I don’t think I will ever stop using my 50mm lens, but I certainly do enjoy venturing out with other lenses to see what kinds of images I can make.

I shot this picture when my family and I were out geocaching with some friends at the local Botanic Garden. I had my D750 and 50mm lens because it’s a way better walkaround option compared to a 105mm macro lens, and I was able to get some really fun pictures of all the little ones playing together and finding hidden secrets around the area. After a little while we took a bit of a break and the kids found this cat wandering around one corner of the gardens, just sort of hanging out and keeping an eye on all the strange two-legged creatures constantly walking through what was clearly its own territory. Thankfully the orange feline was kind enough to let the kids pet it and play with it, and when I wanted to get in close for a picture it happily obliged. Or maybe it just happily ignored me. I’m not sure. But either way, I was able to get a picture so that’s all that matters to me.

I shot this at f/1.8 because well why not. It was fun to take a fairly simple but effective image with a clear subject, bright colors, good contrast, and a smooth blurry background. The cat’s eye is tack sharp, the colors of its fur contrast with the dark green background, and it looks like it sees something interesting on the horizon which invites the viewer to speculate on what in the world it might be. (Spoiler alert: I think it was a shrubbery.) This is a great example of an image that’s pretty basic but a lot of fun to shoot, and the kind of picture you can’t really get with a mobile phone and auto-blurring software.

Earlier this year I posted a photo of some water droplets suspended in midair that I shot near the southeastern corner of the Oklahoma State University campus. Even though that image didn’t turn out exactly how I had hoped, I treated it as a learning experience and wanted to find ways to improve on the overall concept, since what good is it, I ask you, if we learn nothing from our mistakes? (A rhetorical question, obviously, but one that is always worth asking no matter how often it is repeated.) More than anything, I wanted to solve the issue of the water droplets in the original being just slightly blurry—the result, so I thought, of Vibration Reduction accidentally being enabled on my lens while shooting with a tripod. So I returned to the same spot weeks later with the same gear (105mm f/2.8 Macro lens and my Nikon D500) to see if I could rectify my mistakes and produce a better image.

In short…I did not. Despite shooting at 1/8000 second and disabling Vibration Reduction, the same problem remained: a slight bit of motion blur on the water droplets. I was a little surprised at the result since I had been so certain of the cause of the motion blur, but rather than pack my bags and head out I instead decided to go for something different entirely. Rather than use the water drops as my subjects, I found a tiny purple flower about one inch in diameter and decided to shoot that while using the the falling water as a background. I think it worked, but this gives me even more ideas to try in the coming weeks and months…

Probably the trickiest part about getting this shot was focusing on the flower. I had to use Live View since the whole setup was about 18 inches off the ground and I couldn’t really hunch down to look through the viewfinder, but unfortunately the Live View focusing in DSLRs is pretty bad for moving subjects like a tiny flower in the midst of a blowing breeze. I played with the aperture a bit, erring on the smaller side to give me a bit more depth of field wiggle room, and after many shots I finally got the one you see here. Strangely, the one thing that makes this photo work is the one thing I didn’t consider at all: tiny itty bitty drops of water on the flower itself. There were a couple of shots without those drops and they just don’t have the same punch or visual impact as this one, and I’m super thankful for that bit of serendipity that ended up elevating this image from mundane to…well, something a lot more interesting to look at :)

It’s interesting where you can find inspiration for photography sometimes. My brother Phil and his wife came down for a visit recently and over the course of a few days he and I spent a lot of time talking about photography techniques, experiments, and of course, gear. We played around with my 105mm f/2.8 macro lens a lot, finding interesting ways to shoot everyday subjects and looking for creative photographic possibilities out in the yard or just around the house. One such opportunity cropped up when the four of us (me, him, and our wives) were played a board game called Concept late into the evening after all the kids were asleep. The game itself was really fun, but what captured our interest even more was the colorful translucent pieces that you place on the board throughout your turn.

The more we looked at the rich greens, blues, reds, and yellows the more we thought they would make for an interesting close-up shot. We started with one single piece—the green question mark—and worked outward from there, with my Nikon D750 resting on the table in Live View as we composed the various elements of the shot. Phil toyed around with foreground and background elements, namely the little colored squares and tall exclamation marks, while I tried different solutions for how to light the image. We ended up using an iPhone in flashlight mode off to one side to get the lighting just right, and Phil carefully arranged pieces in the foreground and background until they looked like what you see here. We shot with an f/3.3 aperture which seemed a bit overkill at first due to super shallow depth of field, but the background out-of-focus elements looked so smooth that we didn’t want to go any smaller than that.

This is one of those shots that works fairly well on its own, but also tells a fun story if you know the context for the image. When I look at this I of course see a green question mark but what comes to my mind is a fun evening of hanging out with family, and that means a lot more to me than any one simple photograph.