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

I talk a lot about learning from my past experiences as a photographer, and this picture is a good example of how I have tried to apply this principle in my daily life. Or at least my daily photography. Not long ago I shared a picture that I shot in my own back yard, with some purple flowers and an interesting style of background blur involving vertical slits of light from a fence. Today’s photo takes everything I learned when photographing the original and applies it to get what is, in my opinion, a much better picture.

These are flowers from a saliva plant, which is pretty common where I live in Oklahoma. Every spring the one we have in our backyard produces these brilliant purple flowers which attract bumblebees, honeybees, hummingbirds, and of course a certain photographer as well :) After taking a picture of purple flowers with the sun slits behind them I wanted to apply those lessons here, and I’m really pleased with how things turned out. I used a +4 close-up filter to close the distance between myself and the flower, and intentionally composed the shot so the flower would be between the balls of light in the background. (A process which would have been much easier with a proper mirrorless camera compared to a DSLR like my D750, which I used for this shot.) I moved around a lot, tried various apertures between f/2.8 and f/5.6, and even after I thought I had the shot and went inside I decided to return to the back yard and give it another go. I’m glad I did, as this image is one that I just might end up printing and hanging on the wall. It seems almost otherworldly, but the scene was so normal that I’ve seen it a hundred times and never thought it would make an interesting picture. And yet, with some practice and self-reflection, it turned out great.

For years we have seen this particular cat roaming around the neighborhood, often minding its own business and generally keeping to itself on a daily basis. My buddy next door has kind of adopted it, feeding him scraps of food and giving him shelter in his back yard, but we’re not sure who actually owns the cat or where it came from. Sometimes it hangs out on our front porch, and our doorbell camera is filled with videos of this cat lounging at night or tussling with other felines at all hours of the day. I don’t know his name and haven’t ever gotten close enough to pet it, but it’s nice to have this cat adding a bit of flair to the neighborhood. So on a nice overcast day this spring I was glad I had the chance to take its photo in a way that I haven’t really done before.

I have a handful of shots of this cat sitting or laying on the ground, but as my wife and I were heading out to go to the lake with our boys we saw the cat sitting on this brick pillar in the yard across the street. Like usual it was just hanging around not bothering anyone so I didn’t want to pester it with my camera, which meant there was only one good option: My D500 and 70-200 f/2.8 lens. That combination turned out to be ideal: I was able to get close enough to the cat to get his picture without scaring him, and also get a nice shallow depth of field as well. The cat’s eyes are tack sharp while his hindquarters and tail begin to recede into the blurry background, and he is sitting in a stance that says “I see you, and I’m not scared of you, but come any closer and I’m outta here.”

I didn’t spend more than 30 seconds getting this photo because we were trying to get going and everyone else was already loaded up in the car and ready to head out, but I’m glad I took the time to take the shot. It was a good chance to get on eye level with this cat and take a more interesting photo than just seeing him sitting on the grass, and also a fun opportunity to take a picture of an animal compared to all the flower shots I have been posting lately :)

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 :)