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

I don’t often use manual focus when shooting, and I suppose it’s a skill that I would like to try more as time goes on, but it’s so darn easy to use autofocus that I wonder if I will ever actually make myself go full manual. Still, it’s times like this when focusing by hand can really come in handy. I was playing with my kids outside when I saw a few tiny spider webs in the low-hanging branches of our backyard Chinese Pistache tree, and thought it would make for an interesting photo especially with the impending sunset. Trouble was, I couldn’t get my lens to focus on the web closest to me so I had to do my best to compose the shot manually, and while it mostly worked out you can see that the foreground of the web isn’t quite as crisp as I would like it. Even at f/4 the depth of field is simply too shallow, or else I needed to be a bit more careful when shooting. I don’t think it’s a bad photo, but I do think I missed out on what could have been a much better picture had I taken a few more shots or at least taken the time to check things in camera. But then every minute I spent fiddling with my D200 was a minute not playing with my kids, and if that means I don’t get the exact picture I’m looking for, it’s a tradeoff I sure can live with :)

This photo was quite unexpected, but I am rather pleased with how it turned out and would like to try this sort of thing again. I went on a brief photo walk with one of my coworkers the other day, and saw her looking up at the trees and taking snapshots with her iPhone. For some reason this concept had not really occurred to me before, and I thought I would try replicating what she was doing. She talked about how cool it was to see the leaves light up with the sun behind them, and she sure was right. It was a little tricky trying to nail the exposure, and it helped that I set the shutter button to lock exposure while using the back button for focusing. The other issue was aperture, as I had no idea what kind of depth of field I was even looking for. Since the screen on my D200 is so tiny it’s hard to visualize this when out shooting, so I tried a couple different values and but knew that anything beyond f/4 would probably not have much DOF to speak of. Thankfully this picture at f/3.3 worked out quite nicely. I had to tweak it a bit in post, but overall I am quite happy with the dynamic range I was able to capture without doing any sort of HDR trickery.

This was another example of why you should always have your camera with you. It was about 8am and I had to take something across campus, and even though I did not have a free hand I figured I might as well take my D200 with me just in case. So I strapped it to my back, trekked across campus, dropped off the package, and turned to walk back when I spotted this flower-covered branch poking up from amidst a sea of white clouds. It almost appeared to have some sort of inner light, a glow if you will, since the sun was low on the horizon and had not reached its full intensity for the day. I tried a few different aperture values, and ended up with the ol’ trusty f/4. It has lately become my go-to aperture for most outdoor shooting, though having the option of blowing things wide open at f/1.8 sure is handy when you need it.

I have seen this statue of Saint Francis many times, since it’s right near my son’s daycare, but I never quite knew what to make of it from a photographic perspective (har!). The day I took this picture it finally hit me: lighting! (duh) It was cloudy and a bit rainy when I dropped my son off on this particular day, and because I had my camera with me I went over to the garden where this statue is placed and fired off a couple shots. I’m very happy with how it turned out, and I hope I can run out and take some more pics the next time it’s cloudy and overcast. We don’t get too many days like that in Oklahoma, so when they happen you gotta use ’em!

Side note: I apologize for the chime noise that pops up near the end of the audio commentary. That was my phone with a new text message, which I forgot to silence. Oops.

This photo is a classic example of the old adage the best camera is the one you have with you. And a good example of why it’s not a bad idea to take a nicer camera if you’ve got one. When my coworkers and I went across campus to run an errand, I left my D200 in my office because I figured it would be kind of a hassle to carry. And besides, what photo could I possibly take on a brief jaunt to the Student Union? But I went back and grabbed it before we left the building, and it’s a good thing too. I saw this dude outfitted with enough NERF weaponry to wreak havok on an office full of cubicles, but he was actually a participant in the annual campus-wide game called Humans vs. Zombies. Let’s just say if I were a zombie, I don’t think either my camera or I would have survived the encounter :)