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

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.

I must admit, when I was out at the OSU Botanic Gardens recently to get some pictures of plants and flowers, I definitely did not have “green and purple hummingbird tree ornament” in mind as a possibility. And yet, here we are, and I could not be more pleased with this picture and how it all unfolded. I was walking through the gardens with my Nikon D750 and 105mm f/2.8 macro lens and, after photographing several different kinds of living things, decided to head to an area near the north end that usually has a collection of small trinkets, odds and ends, and figurines scattered (carefully placed?) about to give visitors a moment of whimsy and serendipity as they look at the flora throughout the area. On the ground were some painted rocks, a few seashells, a model house, and other such things, many of which would have been fun to photograph. But the thing that really caught my eye was the artificial avian friend you see above, and I knew it would make a great subject to capture with my camera.

The easiest choice I had to make was what to focus on, and as far as I was concerned there was just one answer: the eye. I suppose someone could get creative in a situation like this and think of something else that might make for an interesting image like, say, the beak or the spring or…well, I really don’t know. Because that’s not, as Dr. Alan Grant might say, what I would do. I’ll take the eye any day of the week and, much like Daniel Kaffee’s father, twice on Sundays.

The next choice was what angle from which to photograph the bird: straight on from the front? A profile shot from the side? How high or low should my point of view be? I settled on what you see here because it worked well to show the eye clear and sharp along with some depth of field with the beak and the tailfeathers just out of focus enough to make things interesting.

And that’s it, right? Just click the shutter a few times and then go about my day, eh? Well, maybe…except something else happened that I, like the One Ring when it was picked up by Bilbo, did not expect. The slightest whisper of wind wove its way through the clearing, causing the wing wheel in the foreground to spin ever so slightly. Fortunately my camera was in continuous high-speed shutter mode which meant I was able to get several shots while the wing rotated and, since I was using my customary Auto-ISO setting of 1/200 minimum shutter speed (along with an f/3.3 aperture which still gave me an ISO of 1100, which tells you a bit about how cloudy it was on this day), got just a bit of motion blur to add a sense of kinetic energy to what was otherwise a surprisingly static composition. I was not expecting that at all, and I’m so glad things turned out the way they did because the result exceeded any expectations I might have had. Between the light, the colors, and the motion blur, this might just be one of my favorite shots I have taken recently. Time will tell of course, but for now I can solidly say that, like Lloyd Christmas, I like it a lot.

While I don’t know much about the plants, flowers, trees, and other things that grow here in Oklahoma, I do know that each spring there are a few things that consistently, year after year, make for excellent photo opportunities: Indian Paintbrush flowers, Magnolia seed pods, and Redbud leaves among them. And when you combine any or all of the above with a bit of rain, overcast skies, and midmorning sun hiding just behind the gray haze overhead, it adds up to some positively splendid photo opportunities. The result of which you can see here–no AI image-generation trickery here, folks. Just light, physics, and being in the right place at the right time to capture the Lord’s creative handiwork.

As with some of the other picture I have shared here recently, this was taken at the OSU Botanic Gardens on the west side of town one rainy morning. I had my Nikon D750 and 105mm lens which is already kind of a magical combination in its own right, but when paired with the aforementioned weather conditions, it’s almost difficult to not get some good pictures. The trick with this week’s image was getting a couple things to line up just how I wanted them and, I think, they did.

First, the subject: I was really hoping to get a single yellow leaf isolated against a background of its purple brethren (the former simply being a more mature version of the latter, which will itself turn fully green in a day or two) in order to create a sense of contrast and subject isolation. That is, I was hoping to get the yellow leaf to stand out from the purple leaves. Since I couldn’t really manipulate the objects within the scene, I had to manipulate my point of view instead, and in the end it worked out pretty well. Could I have moved slightly to the left or right in order to get a nice uniform purple background taking up the entire right side of the frame? Perhaps. Though doing so would have made the second thing a lot more difficult.

After finding a general angle from which to compose the shot, I then set out to get much more specific with the depth of field. That is, I wanted the entire leaf to be sharp and in focus, and even shooting at f/8 this proved to be more than a little tricky. If I adjusted my angle ever so slightly, it would put one side of the leaf or the other in focus while its counterpart would be a blur. Remember that depth of field when taking close-up shots like this is a matter of millimeters, not inches, and altering your point of view by a single degree can make a big difference in the outcome of the shot.

Then again, another solution is to just take a boat-load of photos and hope one turns out. Is that what I did here? Well…perhaps. Maybe. I dunno.

Ok, so yes that’s exactly what I did. And you know what? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that approach at all. There were simply too many variables in an uncontrolled shooting situation to create the perfect composition, and one of the best ways to deal with that kind of scenario is to just take lots and lots of pictures. Sports photographers know this and do it all the time; why not nature photographers?

Aside from the sharp subject, I’m also quite pleased with how the other elements come together in this image: the little blip of light purple on the left, the yellow leaves nearly at the edge of the frame on the right, the variations between light and dark in the background, and even the little drop of water at the bottom of the lowest leaf. These all come together to form an image with which I am well pleased, and I hope you like it too.

My normal go-to when it comes to most photography is pretty basic: one single subject, clear and in focus, with additional content in the background, foreground, or both, for a sense of time, place and context. This week’s photo, as you can see, breaks that formula in a couple of ways. It was something a little different for me to try, and while I’m not entirely certain about the result, it was fun and I got to get a little creative along the way which I always enjoy.

I shot this picture when I was visiting the local botanic garden on a rainy morning, and had my D750 and 105mm macro lens with me for any photography opportunities I happened to spot along the way. I originally just kind of passed by this flowering plant without thinking too much about it, and also because it was really low to the ground which would have required some odd contortions in order to get an interesting picture. The more I thought about it though, the more I decided to use it as a bit of a challenge and a chance to try something a bit different.

I squatted down on my heels, knees bent, and held my camera out in front of me with Live View enabled and the screen flipped out so I could see it. Newer mirrorless cameras with modern autofocus systems would have had no trouble with this at all, but on a decade-old DSLR with contrast-detect autofocus when composing in Live View, it’s a different story entirely. Thankfully there was no wind and the only real problem I had was my own body wiggling back and forth as I held my camera out. I compensated for this by shooting at f/8 instead of a wider aperture, which would have been possible since all these flowers are basically on the same focal plane, and making sure vibration reduction was enabled on my camera lens. I lined up the shot such that the background was uniformly dark to help make the flowers stand out as much as possible, and tried to get the whole cluster in the frame and not cut off anything on the top or left side. I did end up cropping just a bit in Lightroom, but overall I think it worked out quite well: the light was even, the petals are glistening in the rain, and the vacant background isn’t really a problem. If anything, having other things in front or behind would probably do more to distract the viewer than enhance the photo, and I think the end result works out just fine. It even gives me a few ideas of what I might try with other images too.

There’s something more to this photo that you can’t really tell by just looking at it–a story that explains the reason I took it, and why it means a bit more to me than what you might expect.

We have been visiting our local botanic gardens for years, probably as far back as when we first moved to town in 2009. It’s a great place to relax, unwind, walk among nature, find some geocaches, and of course, take photos. This might sound like a bit of a cliché but it’s true: no matter whether you’re a kid, an adult, a college student, or even a pet, there’s always something fun to see or do at the botanic garden. They have several artificial features too such as benches, sidewalks, a giant chess board, a pond, some fountains, and even an O-Gauge model train set with a sign that says “Platform 9 ¾”.

One of the more popular installations over the years is that of a swing hanging from a tree branch. It’s perfect for kids, or even teens and some adults, to pass the time while out walking around. For years the swing was attached to the tree by two thick loops of woven nylon, much like what you would find on a seat belt, which, while functional, had the unfortunate side effect of rubbing the bark off the tree branch. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people (including my own two children) enjoyed that swing though over time the toll it took on the tree really became noticeable. About five years ago I approached the director of the botanic garden to ask if I could make a bit of a change to how the swing was mounted to make it a better experience for those who used it and also the tree. She agreed, and a week later I showed up at the garden with my drill, a half-inch auger-style bit, and two gigantic eye bolts.

As a local arborist explained to me when we were putting some swings on the tree in our own back yard a decade ago, it’s better to drill through a tree branch and insert a straight rod or eye bolt rather than put a loop of rope, chain, or nylon around a tree branch. The former will allow the tree to heal itself over time and eventually create an even stronger mount for the swing as it grows around the hardware. The latter will essentially do the opposite, and choke the branch by restricting the flow of sap as it grows over time. It didn’t take long for me to get the nylon straps removed, the eye bolts installed, and the swing re-hung and ready to go for years to come.

And that’s exactly how things went: every time we visited the botanic garden after I re-did the swing mount we saw it being used like before, but the tree branch healing itself where so much of its bark had been stripped away. However, when I stopped by the swing on my recent rainy day photography excursion at the botanic garden I was a little surprised to see that it was gone. It had been removed, possibly because it had simply worn out from use, or perhaps to limit liability after someone had fallen off. The eye bolts were still poking through the tree branch, but instead of a normal-sized swing for adults and kids there was only this small fairy alighting on a leaf, which itself was hanging from one of the metal circles above.

I was surprised, of course, but not really sad about it. That’s how things go–change, as they say, is the only constant in this world. While I’m going to miss seeing the swing hanging from the tree when we go to the garden from now on, I do like that the hardware I installed is being put to good use. Who knows, maybe this fairy will be joined by another one on the other eye bolt. Or perhaps something else will come along and take her place. Who knows. In the end I’m just glad I had the opportunity to help out the botanic garden patrons for a little while, and now, take a picture of this fairy enjoying her perch from up above.