Owl Village

I know I probably sound like a dinosaur when I say things like this, but if you have been following Weekly Fifty for any length of time this will not come as a surprise: this photo is not only an illustration of how a dedicated full-frame or even APS-C camera remains far superior to a mobile phone camera in most respects other than simple portability, and also a reminder that phone screens are not always the best vehicle for viewing pictures. I took this shot with my D750, a camera that is over ten years old as I write this in 2025, using a 105mm f/2.8 macro lens that was released in 2006. And yet, I humbly (or not so humbly) submit that this image would literally be impossible to capture on any mobile phone. Not some, or most, mobile phones, but any mobile phone. It can’t be done. Sometimes the old ways are just better than the new ways :)

So here’s how this played out. I was out at the OSU Botanic Gardens on a rainy, overcast morning (are you seeing a theme here, based on the last few Weekly Fifty photos?) when I came across the scene you see above. It was part of a display in the grass just below last week’s hummingbird picture, possibly put here by some patrons or perhaps the proprietor. In any case it was a fun, whimsical display that was practically begging to be photographed on that drizzly day. The owl was less than one inch tall and its counterpart, the little hut in the foreground, about half that. I bend down, enabled Live View, flipped the screen out, set an aperture of f/8, and got to work taking some photographs. I really like the three-quarters view for subjects like this instead of head-on or profile, as it helps draw the viewer into the scene and feel a sense of connection that isn’t really present when looking from other perspectives. F/8 meant that the texture and detail on the owl would be quite clear, even the ruffled feathers and sharp talons, and even the texture on the tree was pretty clear too. I tried a couple shots at f/4 but it was just too blurry, and f/11 had kind of the opposite problem. Hence, f/8 was the sweet spot.

There’s something else here too: a tiny, almost microscopic, drop of water in the blue paint just below the foremost eye. If you’re looking at this on a mobile phone you probably can’t see it, but even if you’re on a computer you might need to click over to the original on Flickr and zoom in a bit, but trust me, it’s there. Subtle details like that are essentially obliterated on sites like Instagram which is a bit of a shame, and one of the reasons I’m on Flickr: you can see the full-size originals and zoom in to examine each pixel if you really want to. Also, I did use the AI Denoise feature in Lightroom to compensate for the bit of noise and grain particularly in the out of focus areas, and it’s something I have learned to embrace a bit more recently. There’s a time and a place for AI in some respects, and if it helps me do a bit of the heavy lifting for making images a bit cleaner and smoother, I have no problem with that at all. Overall I’m very pleased with this shot and it was a fun way to practice some of the techniques I have developed over the years.

Finally, to address the issue I mentioned in the opener, there’s a couple reasons you can’t get this with a mobile phone. First, the fixed focal length of roughly 28mm on most mobile phone cameras is far too wide to get a shot like this. Even phones with telephoto lenses can’t get this kind of picture because their lens apertures are too wide and, when paired with minuscule image sensors, can’t re-create the incredibly shallow depth of field on display while also maintaining the sharpness, crispness, and level of detail you can get with a dedicated camera. I’m certainly not against mobile phone cameras and they are, of course, often a convenient choice. But sometimes they’re not the best choice and it’s amazing what you can get with some dedicated camera gear, a little practice, and an eye for seeing photography situations right in front of you.