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

I talk a lot about learning from my past experiences as a photographer, and this picture is a good example of how I have tried to apply this principle in my daily life. Or at least my daily photography. Not long ago I shared a picture that I shot in my own back yard, with some purple flowers and an interesting style of background blur involving vertical slits of light from a fence. Today’s photo takes everything I learned when photographing the original and applies it to get what is, in my opinion, a much better picture.

These are flowers from a saliva plant, which is pretty common where I live in Oklahoma. Every spring the one we have in our backyard produces these brilliant purple flowers which attract bumblebees, honeybees, hummingbirds, and of course a certain photographer as well :) After taking a picture of purple flowers with the sun slits behind them I wanted to apply those lessons here, and I’m really pleased with how things turned out. I used a +4 close-up filter to close the distance between myself and the flower, and intentionally composed the shot so the flower would be between the balls of light in the background. (A process which would have been much easier with a proper mirrorless camera compared to a DSLR like my D750, which I used for this shot.) I moved around a lot, tried various apertures between f/2.8 and f/5.6, and even after I thought I had the shot and went inside I decided to return to the back yard and give it another go. I’m glad I did, as this image is one that I just might end up printing and hanging on the wall. It seems almost otherworldly, but the scene was so normal that I’ve seen it a hundred times and never thought it would make an interesting picture. And yet, with some practice and self-reflection, it turned out great.

For years we have seen this particular cat roaming around the neighborhood, often minding its own business and generally keeping to itself on a daily basis. My buddy next door has kind of adopted it, feeding him scraps of food and giving him shelter in his back yard, but we’re not sure who actually owns the cat or where it came from. Sometimes it hangs out on our front porch, and our doorbell camera is filled with videos of this cat lounging at night or tussling with other felines at all hours of the day. I don’t know his name and haven’t ever gotten close enough to pet it, but it’s nice to have this cat adding a bit of flair to the neighborhood. So on a nice overcast day this spring I was glad I had the chance to take its photo in a way that I haven’t really done before.

I have a handful of shots of this cat sitting or laying on the ground, but as my wife and I were heading out to go to the lake with our boys we saw the cat sitting on this brick pillar in the yard across the street. Like usual it was just hanging around not bothering anyone so I didn’t want to pester it with my camera, which meant there was only one good option: My D500 and 70-200 f/2.8 lens. That combination turned out to be ideal: I was able to get close enough to the cat to get his picture without scaring him, and also get a nice shallow depth of field as well. The cat’s eyes are tack sharp while his hindquarters and tail begin to recede into the blurry background, and he is sitting in a stance that says “I see you, and I’m not scared of you, but come any closer and I’m outta here.”

I didn’t spend more than 30 seconds getting this photo because we were trying to get going and everyone else was already loaded up in the car and ready to head out, but I’m glad I took the time to take the shot. It was a good chance to get on eye level with this cat and take a more interesting photo than just seeing him sitting on the grass, and also a fun opportunity to take a picture of an animal compared to all the flower shots I have been posting lately :)

This photo was an exercise in condensing years of photographic experience down to about a five-minute time span. In order to get this shot I had to think about lighting, aperture, depth of field, sharpness, background objects, foreground objects (which I finally had to just nudge aside) and even small breaths of wind. It seems like a pretty basic image, but a lot of thought and careful consideration went in to what you see here.

I was out for a walk around Theta Pond in late April, looking for natural colors amidst a sea of browns and greens, when I saw a small patch of purple flowers near the southeastern edge of the pond right by University avenue. Most of the flowers were open and drooping, but some, such as this one, had yet to spring forth which made them ideal photography subjects. I basically tried a series of techniques while working my way closer, closer, and closer to finally get this picture which was, literally, the last one I shot during my time at this particular spot. Out of 42 images this was the one I liked the most, and even though there’s just a few things I might have done differently in retrospect I really like the deep purples, rich greens, and contrast between dark and light.

When I saw this flower I first thought about the direction of light, and realized I would need to scoot around to a different part of the flower bed so the sun was over my left shoulder. I took a photo with my 50mm lens at f/2.8, getting about as close as I could to the flower, and ended up with this:

It’s not bad, but there’s way too much going on and it’s hard to find a subject amidst all the other elements. When this happens you have two options:

1. Crop the final image
2. Get closer to the subject

Cropping wouldn’t really solve the problem of the busy background, but thankfully I had my set of close-up filters in my pocket which would let me close the gap between my lens and the flower quite considerably. Taking a cue from my experience photographing the Indian Paintbrush flower that I shared on May 5, I attached my +2 filter which I thought would give me the picture I was going for:

While this second approach was certainly improved, I still wasn’t happy with the way the subject didn’t quite stand out from the background as much as I was going for. Also, as I was reviewing my photos on the spot I noticed that giant vertical bar of light which was hugely distracting. These problems were both mitigated by me switching to my +4 filter and scooting to the side just a bit so that background element was no longer in the shot. The result is the photo you see at the top of this post, which had a beautifully blurry background and required no cropping whatsoever. I shot it at f/2.8 which is kind of asking for trouble when shooting close-up, and you can see one problematic artifact as a result: the depth of field is so shallow that the top of the flower is just a bit out of focus. I think if I were to re-do this shot I would go with f/4 to get a sharper subject, but that might compromise the beauty of the background…and I’m not sure that’s a tradeoff I’d be willing to make.

This type of shot (single subject, blurry background) is one I have done many, many times over the years on Weekly Fifty but it’s a composition that I really like returning to because the results just make me happy. It’s really fun to get shots like this, and it’s a great showcase for the versatility of the classic Nifty Fifty lens :)

I didn’t crop this photo. Not one bit, not even a single pixel. And that’s something I can almost never say. Nearly every one of the shots I share on Weekly Fifty is cropped, even if only just a little bit, and it almost felt like cheating to post this image without any cropping at all. I tried a few different times, but no matter what I did I always ended up preferring the original, and that really surprised me. I don’t know what kind of flower this is but it was super small, and I was only able to get this picture thanks to my +10 Close-Up Filter on my D750 + 50mm lens. I was walking through one of the gardens on campus when I saw this small purple plant hanging its head low in the afternoon shade, and thought that a picture would be difficult but at least worth a try.

Getting this shot was actually a lot more complicated than it might appear. For one, this flower was only about eight inches off the ground which meant I had to somehow get underneath it to take a picture. That part wasn’t too bad since my D750 has a flip-out screen, but the +10 Close-Up filter made focusing and composing really tricky. Add to that the wind which was whipping this flower around all over the place, and the fact that my D750 only has super slow contrast-detect autofocus in Live View…let’s just say this wasn’t an easy shot to get.

I took a couple shots at f/4 but quickly realized that there was no way I could get a depth of field wide enough for the photo to work without stopping down. I went to f/5.6 which gave me a little more wiggle room, and that turned out to be just the ticket. Out of a dozen photos this was the last one I took, and I’m so happy with how it turned out. I like the monochromatic color scheme, the bright blue, and even the way the flower points downward is pretty neat. It almost has a sense of kinetic energy, as if it’s a Kingfisher diving downward for a quick snack. The closed flower in the background seems like its watching or waiting, and the orange building in the background makes the bright blue just pop out of the screen.

I dunno…this one just might end up printed and going on my wall :)

A lot of things happened in the very short time that it took me to take this photo. And while I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite picture of a duck that I’ve ever taken, I do like the results and this image was only possible thanks to others that I have shot, and learned from, in the past. I was out for a walk around Theta Pond on the OSU campus one afternoon in April, armed with my D750 and an episode of MacBreak Weekly on my AirPods when I saw three ducks just hanging out by the sidewalk. I literally just walked on past, minding my own business and leaving them to mind theirs, when I realized that they didn’t flinch one bit as I strode by. It occurred to me that I might be able to get a picture if they were willing to sit still while I pointed my camera at them, so I figured I might as well give it a try. I went back, lowered my camera to the ground, put it in Live View, flipped out the rear screen, and snapped a couple pictures.

The duck didn’t budge an inch, so I pressed my luck just a bit. I crept ever so slightly closer, took another photo, and then the duck clearly started to notice me. I didn’t make any sudden or threatening movements, but I could tell this duck (and its friends) were a little skittish at this tall dude with a big camera intruding on their personal space. I held my breath (literally), placed my camera on the sidewalk, tilted it up at the duck, and took just a couple shots at f/1.8 with the focus point sitting squarely on the duck’s eye. And by golly, as my Dad would say, it worked.

I knew I was pressing my luck a bit by shooting at f/1.8, but the results speak for themselves. I’m telling you, even after owning this Little Lens That Could for nine years it still surprises me :)

This was a photo I didn’t plan, didn’t prepare for, and didn’t even think I could take. It was a nice moment of photographic serendipity that served as a good reminder of why I like this hobby so much, and something I’d like to try again in the future. You’re looking at a small patch of purple flowers in the corner of my backyard, and even though these things show up every year I still don’t know what they are or how to get a good picture of them. It’s not like last week’s shot where you can just point your camera at one of these and get a nice picture almost every time. Instead, these purple flowers are grouped together in tight masses, and what you usually end up with is a mass of muddy purple instead of a well-composed photograph. Nonetheless, on a warm April evening while my wife was reading to our youngest son in the backyard I thought I would grab my camera and see if I could wrest a photograph from this patch of purple flowers somehow.

I got down low, activated Live View on my Nikon D750, put a +2 close-up filter on my 50mm lens, tilted the rear screen up, and took a few pictures. It wasn’t really working out though, and as I reviewed my images I just wasn’t happy with what I was getting. It was, as I expected, mostly just a purple blob in the lower half with a light brown blob (i.e. my fence) in the top half. I kept at it though, and soon stumbled across another element I had not considered: the setting sun.

Turns out that the light streaming through the small spaces between my fence boards created a brilliant bokeh effect, but I didn’t realize it at first because (and I know this sounds dumb but it’s true) I was facing the wrong direction. I never considered composing my shots such that the sunlight was in the background, and as soon as I tried this new approach everything changed. I’m thrilled with the vertical out-of-focus light strips in the background, which look almost otherworldly and give this simple picture a mood that I would have never predicted. The one thing I’d like to re-do in the future, if I get the opportunity before these plants wilt, is find a way to isolate one single flower much like last week’s image of an Indian Paintbrush. This picture isn’t great in its own right, but it hints at greatness and gives me some fun new things to think about for future photos that I had not previously considered.

Another Spring, another photo of a Castilleja flower. Known as an Indian Paintbrush around here, these things show up all over the place in April and May, but their beauty is in no way lessened due to their prominence. This, like other similar photos I have taken and shared in the past, was shot in my neighbor’s field right across the street. It was early evening and I was outside with my two boys, mostly just passing the time with some unicycle-riding before bed, when I suggested we go over to the field and take some pictures. I had my D750 and close-up filters, just in case I wanted to do something slightly different than in the past. My oldest son grabbed his little Canon Powershot pocket camera while my youngest was content to just come with and look at the flowers, and the three of us ran across the street to see what we could find.

It’s not hard to take a great picture of these flowers. It’s really just a matter of finding one (or several, depending on the shot you are going for) and pointing your camera and pressing the shutter button. You’ll get a winner almost every time. And honestly, I think that’s part of the appeal for me: with very little effort anyone can take a beautiful flower picture, even if all you have is a simple mobile phone. In this case I show a few frames at f/2.8 and was decently happy with the result, but then I wondered what would happen if I got just a bit closer. The minimum focusing distance on my 50mm lens is about a foot and a half (I think, anyway. I haven’t checked in a while) which means to get a ton of background blur you have to use a super-wide aperture, which means the depth of field is really shallow, which means the flower isn’t as sharp as you might like.

Enter the magic world of close-up photography :)

I think I used a +2 filter on this, which made the minimum focusing distance much closer and gave me a ton of background blur and subject separation while also giving me some latitude to work with a smaller aperture and make the subject sharper. I shot this at f/6.7, even though it looks like it was f/1.8. That’s entirely due to the close-up filter, and even with such a small aperture you can still see that some parts of the flower are not in focus. The critical parts are though, and that’s what matters to me.

It took some experimentation and several attempts to get what is, at the end of the day, a really basic photo, but it’s one that I really like and a good reminder that photography doesn’t have to be complicated or produce wall-worthy artwork to be rewarding. If you can get a shot you like and learn something in the process, then that’s all you need.

I’m still finding out interesting ways to use my 10-stop ND filter, and most of them involve running water. Not that there’s a ton of that sort of thing where I live, but the opportunities I do have often give me some interesting results or at least some things to think about. Aside from the fountains in Theta Pond, the other easily accessible scene on campus that lends itself to long-exposure photography is the fountain at the south entrance to Low Library. I walk or bike past it most days, but it runs dry during the winter months because freezing water is pretty bad for pipes. In early April the powers-that-be decided to unleash the circulating torrent for the season, and once I saw that the fountain had been turned on I immediately thought about getting a long-exposure shot of it.

Initially I was going to use my D7100 but thought that its 75mm equivalent field of view would be too constricting, so when I did get the opportunity to take this shot I made sure to bring my full-frame D750 instead. I thought about shooting this scene during the early morning hours as I biked across campus, but thought that a picture later in the day would be more interesting. There’s a light pole just outside my window at my office and as the morning passed I waited until its shadow was pointing due north, and then grabbed my camera, tripod, ND filter, and went to the library to get to work.

I had a pretty good understanding of what I was aiming for, but there were some variables I couldn’t plan for or control. For one, pedestrians. The lawn in front of the fountain is usually full of students but on this particular day it was relatively empty. So that was definitely a win. Also, plentiful passers-by posed a problem but that was partly mitigated by the six-second shutter speed; unless someone stood still or walked very slowly, they were unlikely to leave their imprint on the image. Fortunately when I shot this there was an honest-to-goodness break in foot traffic, which was another unexpected win. Finally, the element of positioning: where to place my camera? I went as far back as I could without running into the steps leading up to the main doors, and tried to center the fountain in the frame as evenly as possible. In hindsight I wish I would have scooted over juuuuuuust a bit to the right, as my slight OCD tendencies cause me to clam up a bit when I look at this photo and realize that the fountain is ever so slightly off-center. However, I partially blame the landscape planners for that one: the footpath through the formal gardens in the background isn’t actually centered with the library. Still, it would have been nice if everything lined up just so.

I got about five images (all at f/16, ISO 100, 6 second shutter speed) but this one stood out for one reason: the lack of wind. In each of the other images a gust of wind blew the water to the left which looked kind of neat at first, but the more I looked at this picture the more I appreciated its simplicity and symmetry. I like the pillar of water in the middle and the slight skirt of water gently cascading off the pedestal, and it gives the scene just a hint of movement while also appearing calm and serene at the same time. The clear blue sky, green grass free of people, and smooth surface of the square collecting pool were icing on the cake, and in the end this is probably one of my favorite photos I have taken of this view of the OSU campus.

One fun thing I enjoy shooting from time to time is backlighting. It’s not that I don’t have the opportunity, just that I forget to take these kinds of shots even when they are right before my eyes. I especially enjoy photos of backlit flowers, but since we don’t really have any in our yard I like to keep my eyes open for situations like this and be ready when they arise. These flowers are just down the street from my house in the same field where my wife and I take our kids sledding in the winter, and each spring there is a patch of tulips and…um…other flowers that is fun to go look at. Two years ago I went down to this spot with my niece to help her understand some basic elements of exposure and depth of field, and sometimes it’s hard not to get a great shot when you have flowers like this. Still, it’s always worth trying to find a way of shooting familiar subjects in a bit more of a creative manner, and backlighting is a great tool to make that happen.

I shot this in the early evening on the first day of Spring, and while my wife was playing with our youngest son I asked our older son if he would want to bike down to this small field for some photos. He happily obliged, and we raced down the street to this spot where I quickly found myself on the ground and contorting myself in strange ways to get some photos. This was my favorite of the bunch for a couple of reasons. First of all, the backlighting. (Naturally.) The sun was just out of the top-right corner of the frame which gave these flowers a brilliant translucent glow, and I like how the five flowers display this to varying degrees. The foremost is almost transparent, and as you look farther back in the image you see others that are different degrees of opacity. It adds a three-dimensional feel to the image that I quite enjoy.

The one thing that really makes this image, though, is the tree branch arching over the top of the scene. That was most definitely intentional, though quite difficult to frame since I was working with the rear LCD screen on my Nikon D750 and it was not exactly easy to see with the bright light. Still, I am mostly satisfied with the way the tree feels like a protective arm covering the scene and telling the flowers Nothing bad’s going to happen to you. Not on my watch.

Longtime Weekly Fifty readers know I rarely post pictures of my kids, and when I do you can’t see their faces. That’s because this blog isn’t for me to show off my family, but to share my love of photography and my journey to continually learn more about it. However, every now and then a picture comes along that happens to have my kids in it that I feel justified in sharing here. So that’s one fairly unique thing about this photo.

The other singular characteristic of this picture is how it was shot. I took it with my iPhone, and I can count on one hand the number of times I have posted a mobile phone photo here. Not that mobile phone cameras are any less worthy of being counted among their large-sensor brethren; I just find my particular photographic learning path to involve more DSLRs and fewer iPhones. That’s just me though.

With that out of the way, let me take a minute and explain what’s going on here. This is the fourth week in a row that I’m sharing a picture taken from a very frozen Lake Carl Blackwell when it froze solid back in February. If you’re tired of seeing shots of frozen lakes, maybe next week’s image will be more to your taste. But I’m not, especially since this so rarely happens here in Oklahoma :) As we were out walking around near (but never on) the lake we came across a bit of an outcropping–a mini promontory, if you will–and I thought it would make for a really interesting photo with the boys’ backs to my camera. It’s all about context, after all: the same picture without my kids would look uninteresting, with no sense of size or place to help orient you, the viewer. But with these two kids looking out you get a sense of scale, and their stances impart a bit of emotion and feeling onto whoever sees the image. Or at least, I hope they do. I didn’t tell them to pose or do anything at all except just stand there and look out at the lake, and this was the result. I didn’t spend more than five seconds taking this picture but I’m pleased with the result, with one exception: I should have held my phone about two inches higher to eliminate the awkward intersection of the horizon line with the head of my son on the right. It’s such an obvious mistake and would have been so simple to remedy, but alas, it is what is. And I’m not going to spend my time picking that particular nit lest it ruin my enjoyment of the image.

This photo is unedited too–no cropping, color adjustment, or even straightening of the horizon. It is how it was shot, and it’s a good reminder that the right composition with the right light can allow mobile phones to work wonders. You’d never be able to get the depth of field in a shot like this from an iPhone that you could get with a dedicated camera, a wide (but not too wide) lens, and a big aperture, but then again, you can’t fit that setup in your pocket either. And sometimes convenience just wins.