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

I didn’t think a whole lot of this photo when I originally took it, but over time I’ve come to like it quite a bit. It was almost an afterthought really, and not planned in any way, but I think it’s one of the better motion-capture images (is that a real thing?) I have taken. Not necessarily because of the technique or composition or anything like that, but because of the colors and the way the image implies a movement that’s not really present at all.

One rainy Friday morning in May I brought my camera to work to see if I could get some shots in the drippy overcast weather and made a deliberate choice to bring my X100F instead of my Nikon for a couple reasons. First, it has a built-in 3-stop ND filter that is perfect for situations like this, as it cuts down the existing light even more which allows for really slow shutter speeds in broad daylight. Or, in this case, broad overcastlight :) Also, the sheer size and weight (or lack thereof) combined with my little Gorillapod (aka small flexible tripod) meant that I knew I would be able to get up close and personal with a particular channel of water near Theta Pond. I thought this particular gear setup would help me get some fun pictures that I don’t normally get to take, and things ended up working out pretty well to that end.

After the rain let up I took a quick jaunt over to the pond and found the spot I was looking for, and took a couple pictures with my lens stopped down to f/11, shutter set to 1 second, ISO set to 200, and ND filter activated which resulted in some pictures where the water was silky-smooth as it rushed over the rocks. Then I saw this particular yellow magnolia leaf and thought it would look good as the focal point of one of these types of pictures, and I really like how it turned out. It was a fun little experiment to try and it makes me want to do more shots like this in the future.

This was one of those photos where everything just worked.

I took this on a Friday morning. Two days prior my wife and I were out biking around the neighborhood with our kids and we went past a pretty large field full of yellow and red flowers, and at the time I told her that I’d like to return the next morning to take a picture. We talked about how the red flowers might really stand out against the yellow ones, and in the right light it might look pretty cool. Sunrise was about 6:20am and I knew if I left for work at 6:45 I would have time to drive past this field, hop out, snap a few pictures before the sun was too high in the sky, and then get to work right on time.

Things didn’t work out for a photo opportunity the next morning but when Friday rolled around I was able to get out the door with a few minutes to spare–enough to drive past this field and stop to take some pictures. I brought my D750, 50mm lens, and +4 close-up filter just in case I wanted to get a few macro images. The flip-out screen on my D750 made compositing much easier since I was able to put my camera in Live View, hold it close to the ground, and see precisely what the scene would look like as I took some pictures. (Even though I normally prefer the optical viewfinder when using DSLRs, Live View does have its advantages.)

A few minutes later and I just wasn’t having much luck. I had plenty of shots of flowers but nothing that really stood out to me though perhaps I might share one here in the coming weeks anyway. I liked the lighting, I liked the colors, and the dew drops covering the grass were a really nice added touch that helped lend some unexpected sparkles to the pictures. The problem wasn’t necessarily finding a good scene, it was finding a good composition. How could I use the various elements to create a solid photograph? And that’s when I saw this butterfly.

I now had a clear subject and focal point for a photographic composition, and I carefully made my way over to the place it was resting in order to take a couple of pictures before it flew away. Once again Live View and the articulating screen helped immensely, and I took several shots at various apertures in order to play around with background blur and overall subject sharpness. No matter what I wanted the butterfly to be as sharp as possible so I shot some at f/1.8, others at f/2.8, and a couple more at f/4 just for good measure.

What I didn’t expect when I loaded the image into Lightroom was how much I liked the bright spots of light thanks to the dew on the grass. They added so much to the image that I ended up choosing this as my favorite picture form the morning even though the butterfly is just a tad soft compared to the shots at smaller apertures. Even stopping down to f/2.8 had a hugely noticeable effect on the bokeh balls (is that what they’re called?) on the left side of the composition, and that was a compromise I just didn’t want to make.

This image also reminded me of one I shot nearly five years ago with the exact same lens, but on my old Nikon D200. It’s fun to revisit old photos as a way of seeing how much you can learn with a little time and experience :)

Ah, the classic Theta Pond Fountain shot. You can’t go wrong with pictures like this, and even though there have probably been thousands of images just like this one taken by thousands of photographers over the years here at OSU…this one is unique and this one is mine and I like it just the same. It’s something I’ve written about before here on Weekly Fifty and something I still struggle with–the idea that my photos have to be new and original or they won’t be of any inherent worth, and that’s simply not the case at all. Of course it’s good to try new things and experiment with new techniques, but there’s nothing wrong with going out and taking pictures of familiar subjects at familiar settings just because it’s what you like. And this is something I happen to like :)

I’ve had the Fuji X100F for about half a year now and I’m still kind of amazed at how useful this little camera really is. I went out for a walk on at work an overcast afternoon in the middle of May and the conditions were perfect for getting a shot like this–lighting was good, there was no wind, and campus was basically empty since graduation was the previous weekend. With the built-in ND filter on the X100F I was able to set the camera down on a rock, set a 2-second timer (to eliminate shake from pressing the shutter) and fire off a short burst of 1-second images that left the water silky smooth and the background tack sharp too. I shot this in RAW, unlike a lot of pictures I take with the X100F, so I could adjust the exposure and some other settings in Lightroom, and the result is the kind of picture I really like to have in my catalog.

And I guess I should say a disclaimer here too: I don’t mean to come across as someone shilling for one particular brand of camera, but good gravy I sure do like that X100F :)

In early May I drove up to Nebraska for the weekend to see some family and, as I often do when I’m traveling alone (as opposed to with my wife and kids) I took a slightly longer but vastly more scenic route compared to the interstates and freeways. I cut through Kansas on Highway 15 instead of I-35 and I-135 and in the process managed to see some interesting sights in the Flint Hills that make long drives like this a little more enjoyable. There’s a judgement call to make whenever passing something that might be worth a photo, though: is it worth my time to stop and try to get what might be a good picture, or should I press on towards my destination knowing that each stop along the way gets me there just a little bit later?

That was my dilemma on this particular drive and though I did park my car several times to get out and take pictures, I knew I also wanted to visit with my family before everyone went to bed and every photo I took along the way meant I would pull into even farther past my planned arrival time. Because of that I tried to be intentional in the photos I took, and kept my eyes open for two specific things: lone trees in the middle of a grassy field, and windmills. Both make for interesting picture opportunities and both are not exactly easy to come by, though one might think that on the open Kansas plains a lone tree wouldn’t be too difficult to spot. (They’re actually a lot more rare than you might think!)

I believe I got this shot near Abeline, Kansas, though I can’t remember if it was north or south of the town. The sun was setting and I knew I would be losing all daylight soon, and even though I had stopped to get a windmill photo about an hour before this one I thought I might as well give this a try just for kicks. I pulled over, grabbed my X100F, and sat down as close to a barbed-wire fence as was humanly possible in order to reach my hands through it and get a decent shot of the windmill. I dared not cross the fence on to private property, but I hope that just reaching across wouldn’t count as tresspassing!

I shot this from a low angle to give a sense of presence and authority to the windmill, and purposely put it on the left side to help the viewer see the wide expanse of grass and sky on the right. Highway 15, along with some overhead power lines, are just outside the frame on the left side and while I wish I could have mowed down some of the pesky grass sticking up from the bottom third of the image I figure it’s all part and parcel of living in the midwest so might as well just embrace it.

My wife likes windmills and shortly after I returned home from the trip I got this printed on canvas for her to hang in her office. She likes it a lot, and that’s probably the highest compliment I could hope to get on a picture like this :)

Edit:
My dad found the exact windmill after a lot of searching on Google Earth. Thanks Dad!

Another example of how photography, as Forrest Gump might have said, is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get. A few weeks ago I was walking past the School of Geology, as I’ve done many many times before, and happened to notice something strange about a little brick wall that I had seen before but never really thought much about. I paused and saw that there were openings on either side of it large enough for a person to pass through, so I stopped and took a short detour to check out what, if anything, was on the other side. What I saw wasn’t all that much in the grand scheme of things, but it was a nice little patio with kind of a mini arboretum, if you will, that I would imagine most people on campus (just like me) didn’t even know was there.

If you’re curious, click here and zoom in a bit on the School of Geology. The black rectangle where the sidewalk jutting out from the curved rode hits the other north/south sidewalk is right on the other side of this week’s picture. And ask yourself: would you ever think to look behind the wall? I sure didn’t!

When I first stumbled across this tiny oasis I had my X100F with me and took a few shots from about waist level, but they didn’t really look how I was hoping they would turn out. I returned the next day and took a couple more shots with my camera right on the ground and pointed upwards in order to capture the garden as well as a bit of sky, and got just the shot I was envisioning. And once again the 35mm focal length of that camera proves to be just about perfect for the type of shooting I like to do on a casual everyday basis.

I had to edit the sky just a bit to bring out some of the color (I used a gradient filter in Lightroom and then erased parts of it on the tree leaves using the filter brush with auto-masking enabled) and made a few other color adjustments, but the one thing I really wish I could get rid of is the…uhm…white markings on the wall. Let’s just say it’s not paint :) I suppose someone with a lot of time and Photoshop skills could remove those but I’m content to leave the image as-is and enjoy the story behind it of discovering a hidden gem right in front of me. And now that you know about it too, maybe you’ll check it out next time you’re at OSU :)