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

I didn’t think a whole lot of this photo when I originally took it, but over time I’ve come to like it quite a bit. It was almost an afterthought really, and not planned in any way, but I think it’s one of the better motion-capture images (is that a real thing?) I have taken. Not necessarily because of the technique or composition or anything like that, but because of the colors and the way the image implies a movement that’s not really present at all.

One rainy Friday morning in May I brought my camera to work to see if I could get some shots in the drippy overcast weather and made a deliberate choice to bring my X100F instead of my Nikon for a couple reasons. First, it has a built-in 3-stop ND filter that is perfect for situations like this, as it cuts down the existing light even more which allows for really slow shutter speeds in broad daylight. Or, in this case, broad overcastlight :) Also, the sheer size and weight (or lack thereof) combined with my little Gorillapod (aka small flexible tripod) meant that I knew I would be able to get up close and personal with a particular channel of water near Theta Pond. I thought this particular gear setup would help me get some fun pictures that I don’t normally get to take, and things ended up working out pretty well to that end.

After the rain let up I took a quick jaunt over to the pond and found the spot I was looking for, and took a couple pictures with my lens stopped down to f/11, shutter set to 1 second, ISO set to 200, and ND filter activated which resulted in some pictures where the water was silky-smooth as it rushed over the rocks. Then I saw this particular yellow magnolia leaf and thought it would look good as the focal point of one of these types of pictures, and I really like how it turned out. It was a fun little experiment to try and it makes me want to do more shots like this in the future.

One reason I like my X100F so much is that it’s basically the ideal everyday camera as well as a professional workhorse, and a lot of this is due to its size and featureset. When my family took a trip to the Chickasaw National Recreation Area in May the X100F is the only camera we brought and it was so nice to know we had a full-fledged professional camera that was so small and light I barely even knew I had it with me. We spent the afternoon hiking and wading in the streams and at one point came upon a spot called Antelope Springs which, as it turns out, is the source of a lot of the water through which were just walking.

The boys spent a little while climbing on rocks near the springs and then we made our way west down a path where we came across this scene here. I didn’t have a tripod (I brought one but left it in the car…oops) so I set my camera down on some rocks, held it steady with my hands, activated its built-in 3-stop ND filter, put it in burst mode, and took several shots with about a 0.5 second shutter speed.

Most were horribly blurry due to camera shake but this one came out pretty nice, even though if you zoom in on the rocks in the background you’ll see that there still is a bit of wobble visible. It’s the kind of thing most people won’t ever notice but I know it’s there, and it’s a good reminder that the next time I set out to take a picture like this I’ll make sure to come prepared!

This was one of those photos where everything just worked.

I took this on a Friday morning. Two days prior my wife and I were out biking around the neighborhood with our kids and we went past a pretty large field full of yellow and red flowers, and at the time I told her that I’d like to return the next morning to take a picture. We talked about how the red flowers might really stand out against the yellow ones, and in the right light it might look pretty cool. Sunrise was about 6:20am and I knew if I left for work at 6:45 I would have time to drive past this field, hop out, snap a few pictures before the sun was too high in the sky, and then get to work right on time.

Things didn’t work out for a photo opportunity the next morning but when Friday rolled around I was able to get out the door with a few minutes to spare–enough to drive past this field and stop to take some pictures. I brought my D750, 50mm lens, and +4 close-up filter just in case I wanted to get a few macro images. The flip-out screen on my D750 made compositing much easier since I was able to put my camera in Live View, hold it close to the ground, and see precisely what the scene would look like as I took some pictures. (Even though I normally prefer the optical viewfinder when using DSLRs, Live View does have its advantages.)

A few minutes later and I just wasn’t having much luck. I had plenty of shots of flowers but nothing that really stood out to me though perhaps I might share one here in the coming weeks anyway. I liked the lighting, I liked the colors, and the dew drops covering the grass were a really nice added touch that helped lend some unexpected sparkles to the pictures. The problem wasn’t necessarily finding a good scene, it was finding a good composition. How could I use the various elements to create a solid photograph? And that’s when I saw this butterfly.

I now had a clear subject and focal point for a photographic composition, and I carefully made my way over to the place it was resting in order to take a couple of pictures before it flew away. Once again Live View and the articulating screen helped immensely, and I took several shots at various apertures in order to play around with background blur and overall subject sharpness. No matter what I wanted the butterfly to be as sharp as possible so I shot some at f/1.8, others at f/2.8, and a couple more at f/4 just for good measure.

What I didn’t expect when I loaded the image into Lightroom was how much I liked the bright spots of light thanks to the dew on the grass. They added so much to the image that I ended up choosing this as my favorite picture form the morning even though the butterfly is just a tad soft compared to the shots at smaller apertures. Even stopping down to f/2.8 had a hugely noticeable effect on the bokeh balls (is that what they’re called?) on the left side of the composition, and that was a compromise I just didn’t want to make.

This image also reminded me of one I shot nearly five years ago with the exact same lens, but on my old Nikon D200. It’s fun to revisit old photos as a way of seeing how much you can learn with a little time and experience :)

This picture is very similar to one I posted a few years ago, and while I guess you could say this is a remixed version of the original I don’t know which one I prefer. I kind of like them both :) There’s something cool about a length of thick twine tied to a post that makes for an interesting photograph, especially when you can get close. Maybe it’s because it creates a sense of nostalgia or conjures up thoughts of simpler times, or possibly it could be that pictures like this invite the viewer to create a larger story in their own minds. Whatever it is, I like photos such as this and fortunately they’re not too difficult to find either.

This was taken (where else?) right near Theta Pond on campus and even though it’s similar to its 2016 counterpart I like how this one offers more context, more life, and more of a story to tell. I had my Fuji X100F with me, partly because I really like shooting with it and partly because it’s so much smaller than a DSLR that I end up carrying it more places, and even though it’s not designed to take close-up shots it does offer some degree of macro capability such that I can often get decent results without using my 50mm lens and a close-up filter. It’s not the same as a true macro lens but the X100F does have a close focusing range of about 5 inches which is enough for what you might call macro-lite photos.

I think what attracted me to this particular scene was how the rope and post were somewhat hidden amidst the leaves of a gingko tree. It created a bit of a sense of mystery, even though the actual scene in real life wasn’t all that noteworthy. I shot this at f/4 partly to get a slightly wider depth of field but also because the X100F does get a little soft when using wider apertures to focus at close distances. I also shot this in JPEG using Classic Chrome and I don’t think I did much in post other than possibly add a bit of vignette. I really like the JPEG files straight out of the X100F and sometimes I think it’s fun to deliberately try to get things right in camera and not postprocess at all (or just a tiny little bit). This is a classic case of me forcing myself not to over-think things and just go with the results I get.

Ah, the classic Theta Pond Fountain shot. You can’t go wrong with pictures like this, and even though there have probably been thousands of images just like this one taken by thousands of photographers over the years here at OSU…this one is unique and this one is mine and I like it just the same. It’s something I’ve written about before here on Weekly Fifty and something I still struggle with–the idea that my photos have to be new and original or they won’t be of any inherent worth, and that’s simply not the case at all. Of course it’s good to try new things and experiment with new techniques, but there’s nothing wrong with going out and taking pictures of familiar subjects at familiar settings just because it’s what you like. And this is something I happen to like :)

I’ve had the Fuji X100F for about half a year now and I’m still kind of amazed at how useful this little camera really is. I went out for a walk on at work an overcast afternoon in the middle of May and the conditions were perfect for getting a shot like this–lighting was good, there was no wind, and campus was basically empty since graduation was the previous weekend. With the built-in ND filter on the X100F I was able to set the camera down on a rock, set a 2-second timer (to eliminate shake from pressing the shutter) and fire off a short burst of 1-second images that left the water silky smooth and the background tack sharp too. I shot this in RAW, unlike a lot of pictures I take with the X100F, so I could adjust the exposure and some other settings in Lightroom, and the result is the kind of picture I really like to have in my catalog.

And I guess I should say a disclaimer here too: I don’t mean to come across as someone shilling for one particular brand of camera, but good gravy I sure do like that X100F :)