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

I’m not sure why, but I kind of have a fascination with photographing mushrooms. They’re not around for long, and when you get down low to the ground to take a picture it feels a bit like you’re sneaking a peek into some kind of hidden kingdom. You don’t see them out in the open very often, and something about the conditions in which you often find them (i.e. musty, damp, kind of dark) just seem kind of…different. When my wife and I took our kids to the local botanic garden for their annual May Day event we were about to head to one of the art pavilions when I spotted this mushroom poking through some mulch near the base of a tree, so I told them to go on without me for just a minute.

I had (what else?) my Fuji X100F with me which isn’t super sharp at maximum aperture when photographing subjects up close, but in this case I cared more about blurring the background than getting an ultra-sharp image, so I didn’t care too much about the technical details and just went all the way to f/2.0. I shot this in JPEG, as I usually do with my Fuji, and used the Velvia film simulation which is really well-suited for nature photography because it has a rich but not overly-saturated color palette. I positioned the mushroom slightly off-center to get some greenery behind it, and even though there’s some weird smudging along the left side of the stem I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s got a nice sense of time and place, and the overcast sky lent a nice even lighting to the whole scene.

I think one of the things that draws me to these types of pictures is the transient nature of the subject. If I would have come back to the same spot the next day, the mushroom would have been gone. These things come and go so quickly you really don’t have much time to photograph them, which means you get a nice little slice of time captured on camera that’s somehow different from a lot of other pictures.

You probably know by now that I’m no arborist, and my knowledge of plants and vegetation is about the same as my knowledge of particle physics. Which is to say, not exactly stellar. All I know is that flowers can be really pretty, and when I see interesting shapes and colors in nature I like to have the opportunity to capture them with my camera. About a week before I took this shot last April I noticed trees all over town exploding with bright purple flowers and while the effect was fascinating to see, I was never able to really get the kind of picture I wanted. Everything I tried just wasn’t quite able to capture the image I had in my mind, until I took a closer look and found what I was missing.

The key to getting the picture, I realized, was to give the viewer something to focus on. With an entire branch full of purple and pink there was no one clear spot to look at, but after realizing that many of the trees also had tiny little leaves sprouting from amidst the puffs of violet I knew I could use that to my advantage. I used my Nikon D750, 50mm lens, and a +4 close-up filter to get close to the leaves, and shot at f/5.6 to get a reasonably wide depth of field. This let me get the leaves to be sharp and focused while still giving me plenty of background blur, which hopefully helps the viewer see that there’s a lot more going on than just some leaves.

This is another example of the continuous learning process that is basically required of anyone who wants to learn more about photography. Or any given pursuit, for that matter. I had the equipment to take this picture about three years ago but none of the knowledge and experience, either on a technical level or from an artistic standpoint. It’s fun to see what happens as you refine and hone your craft over time, and I’m sure not too long from now I’ll revisit a scene like this and take a picture that’s even better. And it’s this cycle of continuous learning and improvement which makes this hobby so much fun :)

In last week’s post I wrote about how the flower photo which was showcased came about as a result of a short drive down the street with my niece to experiment with, and learn more about, photography. This picture also came from the same event, and it’s also an illustration of how sometimes people can see things that you might not notice even though they are right in front of you.

After my niece and I spent about 20 minutes taking pictures of purple tulips we got in my car and drove down the road a little ways to see if there might be any other scenes worth photographing. The sun was rapidly descending on the horizon and after going about a half mile and coming up empty I turned around in a parking lot and we headed for home. That’s when she spotted this lone tulip poking up in the middle of a boulevard, all by itself, and excitedly told me to pull over so we could get a shot. I didn’t even realize this flower but she had no trouble spotting it, so I found a safe spot to park and we ran over to see if we could get any pictures before we lost all the light we had.

As we looked at the scene from different angles and played around with different apertures (She had my Nikon D7100 + 50mm lens, I had my D750 + 85mm lens) I noticed something that we could use to our advantage despite the quickly-dimming sunlight: headlights from passing cars. I showed her how, by getting close to the flower and shooting wide open, she could transform headlights into big blurry balls of orange and yellow. You can see the effect in the photo above, which is quite pronounced even when shooting at f/2.8 instead of f/1.8, and it was neat seeing her eyes light up when she realized that these effects were a result of controlling her camera, not adding a filter on her camera. Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter method, but sometimes it’s just kind of neat to learn that you can do it yourself :)

A few weeks ago we had family stay with us for a weekend, and it’s always a bit chaotic (in a fun way) when our house is bursting at the seams with in-laws and cousins and all the running and chatting and eating and laughing that comes with such events. My niece, who is 14, spent a lot of time that weekend taking pictures with her mobile phone and I really enjoyed seeing her enthusiasm and energy for this newfound outlet of creative expression. It was fun to watch her look at ordinary objects–flowers in the back yard, fence posts, bumblebees–and see them as beautiful creations to be photographed and shared with others. Of course most of those images ended up on her Instagram, and she liked to use filters and effects, but even though that’s not really how I operate I had to continually remind myself that it wasn’t about me. It was about her, and if she was happy doing what she liked then I wasn’t about to stop her.

The evening before they left she asked if she could use one of my cameras. Delighted at the chance to show her a bit more about photography, I let her have my Nikon D7100 with a 50mm lens and showed her how to control the lens aperture and what effect that had on the resulting image. She was pretty excited with this newfound level of control and wanted to try a bit more, so we went out to find some flowers to photography. I brought my Nikon D750 and 85mm lens, and we drove a few blocks from my house where we came across a patch of tulips someone had planted in an acre of grass near the road.

We spent the next half hour taking photos of the flowers, and I gave her some pointers about composition, lighting, and changing her angle of view. I showed her what happens when you shoot at f/1.8 vs. f/4 and how the former makes the background super blurry, but using physics instead of a filter. Through it all I tried to be careful to not downplay the pictures she had taken with her phone, but instead explain the reasons someone might choose a dedicated camera as well as what you can do when you take control over the exposure settings.

This picture (which I shot, though she has others very similar to it) demonstrates something we played around with during our time that evening: the idea that ordinary objects can become beautiful compositional elements when shot properly. The patch of blue with the white and orange lights on the left is just my 2007 Toyota Matrix but, with a little sunset lighting and the right perspective, can add a really neat splash of color to a photo :)

Here’s the final picture I’ll be sharing from my time with the Sigma 40mm f/1.4 ART lens, and I chose this one for a reason. It might sound corny, but I don’t think I could have gotten this particular shot with any other lens. But first, a bit of background: this was taken at the Big XII Equestrian Championship held at OSU back in late March, and even though OSU ultimately lost (but not by much!) we were glad we could go out and support the riders who had worked so hard to get there.

After one of the events one of the riders, who was a student in my wife’s class, brought her horse up for our boys to see up close. Normally I’d have my Fuji X100F for times like this but since I was evaluating the Sigma lens I brought that with me instead and even though I wasn’t exactly used to its sheer size and heft, I got some shots such as this one that I really like. What I find most compelling about this image is the way the horse is tack-sharp, especially its eye, but everything in the foreground and background is blurry to some extent. As the viewer your eye is immediately drawn to the horse but then you start to notice other elements like the man’s plaid shirt, the younger child in a blue coat, and context clues such as the overhead lights and the fact that my wife is wearing a hat. It all comes together to paint a richer picture of the entire scene than if it were just the horse by itself, and when you add in the fact that my oldest son is reaching out to touch the horse it’s kind of the cherry on top.

So why couldn’t I get this shot with any other lens? The options I had at my disposal were:

• Fuji X100F (23mm f/2.0 lens, 35mm equivalent on full-frame)
• 35mm f/1.8
• 50mm f/1.8

I’m not counting my 85 or 70-200 because I wouldn’t even think to bring them to a situation like this; they’re just not practical. And with each of those lenses I wouldn’t have been able to get the shot framed quite like this while also getting the foreground out of focus. The background, sure. But not the foreground. The closest might have been my 35mm lens but even at f/1.8 the man’s shirt (which I really like, by the way. The plaid pattern is just buttery smooth when blurred out) would have been too much in focus. If I used my 50mm I would have had to stand farther back to get a similar composition and then, as you might have guessed, the foreground wouldn’t be as blurry. Something about the 40mm focal length just worked ideally to capture this image, and even though I don’t plan on ever purchasing that lens (At $1300 it’s just too expensive) it sure does give photographers some interesting creative freedom.