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

This photo was an exercise in condensing years of photographic experience down to about a five-minute time span. In order to get this shot I had to think about lighting, aperture, depth of field, sharpness, background objects, foreground objects (which I finally had to just nudge aside) and even small breaths of wind. It seems like a pretty basic image, but a lot of thought and careful consideration went in to what you see here.

I was out for a walk around Theta Pond in late April, looking for natural colors amidst a sea of browns and greens, when I saw a small patch of purple flowers near the southeastern edge of the pond right by University avenue. Most of the flowers were open and drooping, but some, such as this one, had yet to spring forth which made them ideal photography subjects. I basically tried a series of techniques while working my way closer, closer, and closer to finally get this picture which was, literally, the last one I shot during my time at this particular spot. Out of 42 images this was the one I liked the most, and even though there’s just a few things I might have done differently in retrospect I really like the deep purples, rich greens, and contrast between dark and light.

When I saw this flower I first thought about the direction of light, and realized I would need to scoot around to a different part of the flower bed so the sun was over my left shoulder. I took a photo with my 50mm lens at f/2.8, getting about as close as I could to the flower, and ended up with this:

It’s not bad, but there’s way too much going on and it’s hard to find a subject amidst all the other elements. When this happens you have two options:

1. Crop the final image
2. Get closer to the subject

Cropping wouldn’t really solve the problem of the busy background, but thankfully I had my set of close-up filters in my pocket which would let me close the gap between my lens and the flower quite considerably. Taking a cue from my experience photographing the Indian Paintbrush flower that I shared on May 5, I attached my +2 filter which I thought would give me the picture I was going for:

While this second approach was certainly improved, I still wasn’t happy with the way the subject didn’t quite stand out from the background as much as I was going for. Also, as I was reviewing my photos on the spot I noticed that giant vertical bar of light which was hugely distracting. These problems were both mitigated by me switching to my +4 filter and scooting to the side just a bit so that background element was no longer in the shot. The result is the photo you see at the top of this post, which had a beautifully blurry background and required no cropping whatsoever. I shot it at f/2.8 which is kind of asking for trouble when shooting close-up, and you can see one problematic artifact as a result: the depth of field is so shallow that the top of the flower is just a bit out of focus. I think if I were to re-do this shot I would go with f/4 to get a sharper subject, but that might compromise the beauty of the background…and I’m not sure that’s a tradeoff I’d be willing to make.

This type of shot (single subject, blurry background) is one I have done many, many times over the years on Weekly Fifty but it’s a composition that I really like returning to because the results just make me happy. It’s really fun to get shots like this, and it’s a great showcase for the versatility of the classic Nifty Fifty lens :)

I didn’t crop this photo. Not one bit, not even a single pixel. And that’s something I can almost never say. Nearly every one of the shots I share on Weekly Fifty is cropped, even if only just a little bit, and it almost felt like cheating to post this image without any cropping at all. I tried a few different times, but no matter what I did I always ended up preferring the original, and that really surprised me. I don’t know what kind of flower this is but it was super small, and I was only able to get this picture thanks to my +10 Close-Up Filter on my D750 + 50mm lens. I was walking through one of the gardens on campus when I saw this small purple plant hanging its head low in the afternoon shade, and thought that a picture would be difficult but at least worth a try.

Getting this shot was actually a lot more complicated than it might appear. For one, this flower was only about eight inches off the ground which meant I had to somehow get underneath it to take a picture. That part wasn’t too bad since my D750 has a flip-out screen, but the +10 Close-Up filter made focusing and composing really tricky. Add to that the wind which was whipping this flower around all over the place, and the fact that my D750 only has super slow contrast-detect autofocus in Live View…let’s just say this wasn’t an easy shot to get.

I took a couple shots at f/4 but quickly realized that there was no way I could get a depth of field wide enough for the photo to work without stopping down. I went to f/5.6 which gave me a little more wiggle room, and that turned out to be just the ticket. Out of a dozen photos this was the last one I took, and I’m so happy with how it turned out. I like the monochromatic color scheme, the bright blue, and even the way the flower points downward is pretty neat. It almost has a sense of kinetic energy, as if it’s a Kingfisher diving downward for a quick snack. The closed flower in the background seems like its watching or waiting, and the orange building in the background makes the bright blue just pop out of the screen.

I dunno…this one just might end up printed and going on my wall :)

A lot of things happened in the very short time that it took me to take this photo. And while I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite picture of a duck that I’ve ever taken, I do like the results and this image was only possible thanks to others that I have shot, and learned from, in the past. I was out for a walk around Theta Pond on the OSU campus one afternoon in April, armed with my D750 and an episode of MacBreak Weekly on my AirPods when I saw three ducks just hanging out by the sidewalk. I literally just walked on past, minding my own business and leaving them to mind theirs, when I realized that they didn’t flinch one bit as I strode by. It occurred to me that I might be able to get a picture if they were willing to sit still while I pointed my camera at them, so I figured I might as well give it a try. I went back, lowered my camera to the ground, put it in Live View, flipped out the rear screen, and snapped a couple pictures.

The duck didn’t budge an inch, so I pressed my luck just a bit. I crept ever so slightly closer, took another photo, and then the duck clearly started to notice me. I didn’t make any sudden or threatening movements, but I could tell this duck (and its friends) were a little skittish at this tall dude with a big camera intruding on their personal space. I held my breath (literally), placed my camera on the sidewalk, tilted it up at the duck, and took just a couple shots at f/1.8 with the focus point sitting squarely on the duck’s eye. And by golly, as my Dad would say, it worked.

I knew I was pressing my luck a bit by shooting at f/1.8, but the results speak for themselves. I’m telling you, even after owning this Little Lens That Could for nine years it still surprises me :)

This was a photo I didn’t plan, didn’t prepare for, and didn’t even think I could take. It was a nice moment of photographic serendipity that served as a good reminder of why I like this hobby so much, and something I’d like to try again in the future. You’re looking at a small patch of purple flowers in the corner of my backyard, and even though these things show up every year I still don’t know what they are or how to get a good picture of them. It’s not like last week’s shot where you can just point your camera at one of these and get a nice picture almost every time. Instead, these purple flowers are grouped together in tight masses, and what you usually end up with is a mass of muddy purple instead of a well-composed photograph. Nonetheless, on a warm April evening while my wife was reading to our youngest son in the backyard I thought I would grab my camera and see if I could wrest a photograph from this patch of purple flowers somehow.

I got down low, activated Live View on my Nikon D750, put a +2 close-up filter on my 50mm lens, tilted the rear screen up, and took a few pictures. It wasn’t really working out though, and as I reviewed my images I just wasn’t happy with what I was getting. It was, as I expected, mostly just a purple blob in the lower half with a light brown blob (i.e. my fence) in the top half. I kept at it though, and soon stumbled across another element I had not considered: the setting sun.

Turns out that the light streaming through the small spaces between my fence boards created a brilliant bokeh effect, but I didn’t realize it at first because (and I know this sounds dumb but it’s true) I was facing the wrong direction. I never considered composing my shots such that the sunlight was in the background, and as soon as I tried this new approach everything changed. I’m thrilled with the vertical out-of-focus light strips in the background, which look almost otherworldly and give this simple picture a mood that I would have never predicted. The one thing I’d like to re-do in the future, if I get the opportunity before these plants wilt, is find a way to isolate one single flower much like last week’s image of an Indian Paintbrush. This picture isn’t great in its own right, but it hints at greatness and gives me some fun new things to think about for future photos that I had not previously considered.

Another Spring, another photo of a Castilleja flower. Known as an Indian Paintbrush around here, these things show up all over the place in April and May, but their beauty is in no way lessened due to their prominence. This, like other similar photos I have taken and shared in the past, was shot in my neighbor’s field right across the street. It was early evening and I was outside with my two boys, mostly just passing the time with some unicycle-riding before bed, when I suggested we go over to the field and take some pictures. I had my D750 and close-up filters, just in case I wanted to do something slightly different than in the past. My oldest son grabbed his little Canon Powershot pocket camera while my youngest was content to just come with and look at the flowers, and the three of us ran across the street to see what we could find.

It’s not hard to take a great picture of these flowers. It’s really just a matter of finding one (or several, depending on the shot you are going for) and pointing your camera and pressing the shutter button. You’ll get a winner almost every time. And honestly, I think that’s part of the appeal for me: with very little effort anyone can take a beautiful flower picture, even if all you have is a simple mobile phone. In this case I show a few frames at f/2.8 and was decently happy with the result, but then I wondered what would happen if I got just a bit closer. The minimum focusing distance on my 50mm lens is about a foot and a half (I think, anyway. I haven’t checked in a while) which means to get a ton of background blur you have to use a super-wide aperture, which means the depth of field is really shallow, which means the flower isn’t as sharp as you might like.

Enter the magic world of close-up photography :)

I think I used a +2 filter on this, which made the minimum focusing distance much closer and gave me a ton of background blur and subject separation while also giving me some latitude to work with a smaller aperture and make the subject sharper. I shot this at f/6.7, even though it looks like it was f/1.8. That’s entirely due to the close-up filter, and even with such a small aperture you can still see that some parts of the flower are not in focus. The critical parts are though, and that’s what matters to me.

It took some experimentation and several attempts to get what is, at the end of the day, a really basic photo, but it’s one that I really like and a good reminder that photography doesn’t have to be complicated or produce wall-worthy artwork to be rewarding. If you can get a shot you like and learn something in the process, then that’s all you need.