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

Who knew that a few weeks after posting a photo of a bee on a flower I would end up with another one to share? Not me, certainly, though I must admit that a few of the pictures I have taken recently have certainly got me thinking about purchasing an actual macro lens and getting rid of my set of cheap close-up filters. Part of me enjoys the challenge of shooting with these simple screw-on adapters, but another part of me sure would like to have an actual macro lens to make shots like this so much less hassle. Still, I do enjoy a challenge and it is fun to see what I can capture with a set of limited gear.

They say you can take great photos in your own backyard, and this illustrates that age-old maxim quite well. We’ve had a few small bushes right off our porch that were here when we bought our house years ago and, though we never do anything but trim them in the spring and fall, they keep growing back like clockwork each year. And just like the summer storms that follow close behind a sudden drop in temperature, large yellow bees invariable come to these violet flowers in search of nectar every April and May. I have tried to take photos of them over the years to little avail, but this year I had my Nikon D500 instead of my old D7100, the critical difference being the 10fps shutter on the former (along with near-unlimited buffer) compared to the paltry offering of the latter. I forget what exactly it shoots–perhaps 5 or 6 fps with a buffer that fills before you can blink, thus making fast-action shots well-nigh impossible. And since these bees barely stay in one place for more than a heartbeat, the D500 was a much better tool for taking photos than any of my other cameras.*

So here’s what I did to get this shot: 50mm lens with +4 close-up filter. F/5.6. Auto-ISO with minimum shutter speed of 1/250 second. AF-C with back-button focus. Then I pushed myself through the flowers to get super close to the bee, holding the back button to continue focusing the whole time, and the instant the bee (which was constantly moving from flower to flower) was in my sights I fired off a burst of images. I repeated that process many times over the course of a few days and eventually got this image which was one out of exactly two that came close to turning out, and even those two weren’t as good as I would have liked. I’m still chasing my white whale of bee photography: a ball of black and yellow fuzz hovering in front of a flower, right before going in for a landing. I’ll get that shot someday, and in the meantime it’s fun to have these learning opportunities.

Of course the best part of this shot was that I got to share it with my six-year-old son who was with me the whole time. He was taking pictures of the same bee with his little Canon PowerShot 3 megapixel pocket camera, and was so excited to show me the shots he was able to get with it. I wouldn’t have cared if I got no usable shots at all–photography wasn’t really the point. Spending time with my kids (or, in this case, one kid while the other was riding his bike) was the real goal.

Mission accomplished :)

*The crop factor of a DX camera really comes in handy with shots like this, so I’m a bit reluctant to use my D750. And the Fuji X100F…forget it. That camera is awesome, but not for shots like this :)

Maybe it’s my own impatience, maybe it’s me getting stir-crazy from the pandemic, but for whatever the reason I decided I didn’t want to wait until the end of the year to do another update video :)

“The moon is supposed to be really good tonight,” my wife said as we were getting ready to put the kids to bed. I stepped out on the back porch to check, but the white ball that governs the night was still below the horizon as the sun was beginning its final descent for the day so there wasn’t really a whole lot to see. Fast forward to about 8pm and my wife and I were standing out in the front yard looking at the brilliant ball of light poking over the treetops as dusk transitioned to twilight. She was right–it was a gorgeous full moon, the kind that you only get to see a few times a year, and combined with the mild weather it was one of those evenings you just hate to let slip by. I ran inside, grabbed my Nikon D500 and 70-200 f/2.8 lens, and went back to get some shots.

A few minutes later I found myself halfway down the street in search of a good vantage point from which to take a photo of our little celestial brother but it seemed like I just couldn’t get a good shot without power lines or trees in the way. I was able to get a couple, sure, but nothing that really stood out to me. It was a fun experience though, and after a few minutes I walked back to our house where my wife and my oldest son were in the driveway looking at the moon. He was in his jammies and should have been in bed, but my wife said he could stay up and see the moon. He even had his little pocket camera with him to take a few shots of his own.

I told my wife that I wasn’t able to get a great photo and she mentioned I could try shooting from the vacant lot down the road. I hadn’t thought about that so I quickly ran inside, got my license, and hopped into the car. As I was pulling out the driveway I motioned to my son to get in with me, and that’s what made this little picture opportunity way more special than it would have been otherwise.

The two of us, me in a pair of old flip flops and he in his pajamas, high-tailed it down to the lot. We parked the car and ran into the field, our cameras in tow, excitedly talking about where to shoot from and sharing the back of our camera screens with each other. I forget the exact exposure values I used, but I dialed in a -3EV exposure compensation to get the moon just right without overexposing, knowing I could adjust the shadows in Lightroom afterwards. I really like how the moon is shrouded in a veil of clouds and framed by leaves and branches, but the best part of this picture was the impromptu opportunity I got to have with my son. You can take all the pictures you want, but it’s moments like these which elevate them to something really special.

Dandelions. They’re like sand. They are a nuisance, and they don’t seem to go away no matter how many you pull up. They’re not special, and most homeowners like myself see them as one of the last things worth photographing. But sometimes, even the most mundane things can make you look twice and think about something beautiful. That’s what happened here, when my wife and I were out on a walk with our boys and I noticed this rather ordinary dandelion in the middle of a rather ordinary field on a rather ordinary street, on the edge of a simple midwestern town.

We walk down this particular street several times a week, and I often bring my D7100 and 50mm lens just in case something happens to catch my eye. Usually not much does, which tends to happen when you trod the same route with such regular frequency, but as we were walking south one day in mid April I looked down and saw this puff of white all by itself and I thought it would be an interesting photo. So on our way back I told my wife to go on ahead with the kids while I lay down on the grass with my camera to take this picture.

As I often do I shot several wide open at f/1.8 only to come to my senses and make sure to grab a few at f/2.8 just in case the 1.8 versions weren’t to my liking. It’s a good thing too, since the depth of field on the former was just a little too shallow. (Which is a refrain that is all-too-common here on Weekly Fifty. You’d think I would learn, but I never do.) This was the last one in the series, out of maybe 20 or 30 shots (all fired in pretty rapid succession) and the one that just nailed it. You know why?

It’s all about the background. Or, specifically, the giant tree in the background that makes the white cloud sitting atop the slender stem stand out so much. That was completely intentional on my part, and I’m so glad it worked out the way I hoped it would. I mean, how do you get a white dandelion to stand out against a blue sky? You can’t, not really, unless you shoot from a higher angle so it’s against the green grass. But then the photo isn’t very interesting. So as I lined up my shot I shuffled myself around just so, making sure to position the head of the dandelion right inside the greenery in the background. I also made sure no other dandelions were in the shot, which was one thing that stood out to me about this particular plant in the first place. By isolating the subject, and positioning the subject against a contrasting background, I was able to take a simple weed and turn it into a photograph I quite like.

Look, I get it. On first glance this looks like kind of a gross photo. It’s a dirty brown tennis ball in the middle of a grassy field. But bear with me a second: I think it’s kind of interesting and you might too.

It starts about an hour before this photo was taken, when my wife and I were out on a walk with our kids after it rained one morning back in April. The world had ground to a halt with coronavirus-related quarantines and social distancing, so even it was just a little bit warm out we took any chance we could to get the kids outside and running around. It was probably 60 degrees and cloudy but the rain had abated so were like “Get your boots on boys, we’re outta here.” Not a hundred yards from our house our progress ground to a halt when they saw a fuzzy caterpillar crawling around on the curb, and they watched it for at least five minutes while my wife and I chatted with a neighbor. I had my D7100 and 50mm lens with me and I wanted to get a shot of said caterpillar, but at the same time I didn’t want to crowd out my boys who were entranced with its undulating movement across the concrete.

So I left it alone, and after a little while we went on our way on the four-mile walk that had become a daily ritual for our family as a way to get the blood moving and enjoy a little change of scenery from the interior of our house in which we found ourselves far more often than before all the coronavirus mess hit. The boys jumped in puddles, my wife and I talked, and I had my camera at the ready in case any photo opportunities hit.

Sadly, nothing really presented itself (or perhaps I just wasn’t looking close enough) and by the time we got back home I think I might have shot, perhaps, three or four photos. No big deal though, there’s always next time. But then I noticed a caterpillar, possibly the same one from earlier, on the other side of the street. (Was it the unwitting subject of a children’s joke? The world may never know.) Our boys were no longer interested in creepy crawlies, having gone on to play with a soccer ball and tennis racquet, so I spent a minute photographing the caterpillar while my wife talked (at least six feet away!) with our neighbor.

I soon realized that the non-flip-out screen of my D7100 was going to make a photo of said caterpillar a little challenging, and that’s when I noticed this dirty, nasty tennis ball in the gutter. I held it near the caterpillar and, much to my surprise, it crawled right up onto the ball. Bingo. Now this was something I could work with. I took a few shots while holding it with my hand but didn’t like seeing my thumb protruding up from the bottom of the frame, so I set the ball on the wet grass and kept rotating it with my left hand while firing off pictures with my right hand. I wanted to get a picture with the caterpillar cresting the ball, ideally with its head held up, and though I don’t think I quite got the shot I was looking for I am really pleased with what I did get. I took several at f/1.8 (because depth of field!) but eventually had the sense to stop down to 2.8, though perhaps I should have gone even smaller because in this shot, which was indeed at f/2.8, the front of the ball is a little too blurry for my taste. Shallow depth of field isn’t everything, folks. Sometimes you just need things in focus.

This picture was a nice bookend to our walk and a nice way to spend a few minutes doing something fun and creative in the midst of so much gloom and anxiety. I’m writing this post on April 16 when so much of the future is uncertain, and that’s when it feels like the moments to search for that spark of inspiration are more important than ever.