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

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 :)