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

Sometimes the most interesting images can present themselves in the most unusual or unexpected ways. One morning a few weeks ago I was outside with my two boys after school while waiting for my wife to get off work, and they were getting a little stir crazy inside thanks to the dreary conditions outside. It was one of those overcast, slightly rainy days that doesn’t lend itself immediately to anything particularly fun except for curling up on the sofa with a blanket and a good book. My boys were more interested in running around and jumping off of things, so I figured we might as well go outside and see what we could come up with. My oldest, who is six, grabbed a tennis racket and started whacking the soccer ball while his little brother asked if we could get down the bubble machine we bought earlier this year. I didn’t see the harm in it so I dusted it off, set it on top of my ladder so the bubbles would float around a bit, turned it on, and let the kids go to town. And boy, did they ever :)

As they were running around swatting bubbles with anything they could find, I snatched my D7100 + 50mm lens to see about documenting the occasion. Sadly that particular gear combination is not well suited to taking pictures of two kids running around because the angle of view is so narrow, but I did get some good shots of each of the boys individually as well as one of their friends who saw the commotion and walked over to join in the fun. Because the grass was already somewhat damp from the rain I noticed that the bubbles were settling on it instead of popping right away, which gave me a great opportunity to take a few shots that I don’t normally get the chance to do.

Things were a bit tricky because I had in mind the type of picture I wanted to get, which is very much like what you see here, and doing it involved some maneuvering and contorting on my part thanks to the lack of a tilting screen on the D7100. I found a bubble that was sticking up a bit, put myself in a prone position, and got a couple of decent photos at f/4 and f/2.8. Then because I was satisfied with the results I pushed the throttle all the way to f/1.8 and got some more, and to my surprise ended up with one that was sharp, focused, and almost exactly what I was picturing in my mind. At this point my kids were calling to me and wanting me to put the camera down so I could get back to playing with them, a request with which I happily obliged. Because let’s face it, as fun as it is to take artsy-fartsy photos of bubbles, it’s much better to jump up and down with your two kids who are behind you and actually playing in the bubbles :)

It’s kind of become an annual tradition here on Weekly Fifty for me to post a picture of a garden spider in the fall, but as autumn marched onward and the leaves started to fall I must admit I had to wonder if I was going to get a picture of one of these black and yellow friends this year. Almost without fail one of these shoes up in our yard sometime around Labor Day, spins a big old web, and hangs out for a few days until it moves on to greener pastures.* The fall of 2017 was turning out to be a big of a bust though, and as the weather got a little chillier and the days grew shorter I kind of gave up on the idea of seeing one appear. And then, in an amazing display of arachnid consistency, my kids found this one hanging off the side of our house just like his (her?) forebears in years past.

And just like we always do, my boys and I spent a couple days feeding the spider with crickets and grasshoppers and watching the fascinating intricate display of dexterity as, with each insect we dropped into the web, the spider nimbly bound its prey in a whirlwind of webbing before closing in for the kill. It’s like watching a nature documentary without the television, and it’s a fun way to share a rather singular experience with my two boys who, like most kids their age, are endlessly curious about, and fascinated by, the world around them. After watching this spider capture the grasshopper my oldest, who turned six this summer, turned to me and said “It’s the food chain, daddy.” He went on to explain that the grasshopper had no doubt eaten other things, and now it was food for something else. I was both proud and relieved, since it has never been my intention to put bugs into spider webs in order to be cruel but to demonstrate to my kids that this is how our eight-legged friends survive. And to hear my son explain this back to me was a nice affirmation that something has stuck with him along the way.

Whenever these situations present themselves I always try to find a way to get photographs, and that is often a little tricker than it might seem. After using my close-up filters for so long I had a good idea of what gear I needed to get the shot I was going for here, so after this spider wrapped up the grasshopper I ran inside and grabbed my D750, 50mm lens, and +4 filter. Even though it was near sunset there was still enough light to get a good exposure at f/8, which I knew I would need in order to get a sharp image with a wide depth of field. Shooting at a smaller aperture would have left too much of the image out of focus, and shooting with a +10 filter would be far too close to see what’s really happening.

The shot you see here was taken at f/8, 1/180 second, ISO 5600 and I think it does a good job of showing what is really happening here. I tried a few different angles and also made sure to take the background elements into consideration–by showing the web the viewer is able to get a better sense of context, and by moving myself to position the spider in front of the gray eaves I was able to make the subjects stand out from the background.

Looking back on previous spider pictures I have posted it’s fun to see a progression in my photography, and also get a sense of just how much I still don’t know and have left to learn. And I’m confident that about a year from now I’ll have another opportunity to practice this type of shot.

*or wherever spiders go when they stop showing up. I have no idea :)

When our son turned six earlier this year we decided to buy him a camera, but instead of getting a kid-friendly camera we got him what he calls a real professional camera. You know, the kind for adults like daddy has. He has shown a great interest in taking pictures in the past year or so and we wanted to encourage that by giving him a real camera with real controls that could take real pictures, but at the same time we didn’t want to break the bank in case he broke the camera. Our solution was a Canon Powershot SD450, which was small and light enough to be pocketable but had all the options and controls of an actual camera. Because it is an actual camera, even though it’s not exactly the most current high-tech touchscreen model. And the beauty of the whole situation was that we only paid $25 for it on eBay, and even though it arrived with a couple of scratches and dings he has used it extensively ever since and jumps at the chance to use his “real professional” camera to take pictures of anything and everything he comes across.

He has also figured out how to change settings, turn the flash on and off, record movies, and set a timer for using it on daddy’s tripod. So yeah, you might say that the birthday gift was $25 well spent :)

A few weeks into the school year I asked my kids if they wanted to go on a photo walk with our cameras–me with my D750 + 50mm lens, my older son with his PowerShot, and my youngest with an old film camera (devoid of any actual film but with a flash that still works). They didn’t quite understand the point at first, but as we walked around the neighborhood taking a closer look at the everyday objects all around us the kids got more and more excited about taking pictures of the most boring, mundane things. We went the same way that the kids go when they walk to school so the route was well-traveled, but even so it took us about 45 minutes to walk roughly one mile because of how often they stopped. It was really cool :)

As we neared the end of our Photo Walk I saw this pinecone basically hovering in midair, suspended by only a thin branch which you can’t really see in the picture. I thought it would make for a fun picture, and a nice opportunity to get a super blurry background too. As usual it took a couple of tries for me to get it right, and of course both my kids wanted to get in on the photo action too, and in the end not only do I have a photo I like but a fun story to go along with it.

I’m not sure what all this says about the power of photography and the ability to use it as a connect with others, but there’s probably some kind of nugget buried here that maybe I’ll suss out someday :)

One a warm Friday morning in early September my wife brought our kids to OSU so I could watch them for an hour while she taught class. They had the day off school and we didn’t want to line up a babysitter for such a short time, so the three of us walked around campus for a little while and then found a place to sit down and have a picnic lunch with some sandwiches, apples, and a half can of peas each. While we were walking around they spotted an elevator and asked if they could ride in it to the fourth floor of the building we were in, and since I didn’t really see the harm in such a simple request we got in while they figured out who got to press the buttons. Once we arrived at the top they ran straight to the window you see here, and I quickly got out my D7100 and 50mm lens to fire off a couple shots.

I don’t normally post pictures of my kids here on Weekly Fifty because I like to keep that part of my life (and theirs) a bit more private, but this one kind of stood out to me for a few reasons. I like how it shows a physical closeness with the two boys, and even though they fight and argue as much as any pair/triad/quartet/etc. of siblings that has ever existed it’s moments like this that remind me of just how much they really do love each other. I also think it’s kind of cool how they are both clearly caught up in the same moment–not looking at one particular subject necessarily, but the action of looking out the window at the lawn below. The older one is resting his hands on the window ledge while the younger one is so short that he can barely see over it, and if you look carefully you’ll see that he’s got his arms stretched out and resting on the sill almost as if he is using them to stretch himself upwards just a bit more to see what his big brother is seeing.

I thought it was kind of a cool moment to freeze in time, and I had to act quickly to get the shot because kids tend to not stay in one place very long. I shot in Aperture Priority at f/2.8 to get the background nice and blurry and dialed in an exposure compensation of -5EV to ensure that the bright outdoors would not be blown out entirely. It worked just fine but it meant that the kids themselves were severely underexposed. Fortunately that’s exactly what I was going for so I didn’t mind :)

I originally posted the color version of this but a few days later returned to the image in Lightroom and re-edited it to be black and white. It felt more appropriate given the subjects (and subject matter) and it really served to highlight the silhouette as opposed to the color of the objects out the window. I certainly didn’t plan this shot but I’m glad I was able to take it, and it was another reminder of how important it is to have your camera with you and also know how to control it to make it do what you want to get the photos you want.

So there I was, heading out for a short walk around Theta Pond after a busy morning at work, when my friend and coworker Gina saw that I had my camera in hand and mentioned that she had a photo opportunity for me. She said there were some Mexican Verbena flowers near our building that I might want to check out with my close-up filters, so instead of going around the pond I took a detour to a little flower bed near the parking garage where I came across the flowers you see in this week’s picture. What Gina mentioned to me that made this opportunity a little more special was that when most people look at these particular flowers they see a single object, when in fact each large purple flower is actually made up of several very tiny flowers. It’s the kind of detail I would normally overlook (and have overlooked many times, since I walked past this particular bed of flowers often) but adds a whole new rich layer to what is already a beautiful sight.

The trickiest part about getting this photo was the wind, because when shooting with a 50mm lens and +10 filter the depth of field is so shallow that even the tiniest subject movement will wreak havoc on the photo. There was just a hint of a breeze when I took this shot but it was enough to send my camera into a tizzy when as tiny little flower petals had a tendency to jitter back and forth just slightly. When this happens as I’m doing close-up work I put my camera in continuous high-speed mode and take a ton of shots hoping something is in focus, and almost every time I get a few pictures that I can use. I’m guessing this would be different if I were using an actual macro lens and not close-up filters, but until that happens this is the technique I’m stuck with :)

One other thing about this picture is the weird color cast. Look at how the greens in the top right corner are kind of desaturated and yellow-ish. I played around with tint and some other settings in Lightroom but in the end I think this is mostly just an artifact that happens when using close-up filters instead of a true macro lens. I could be wrong here, but when I use my +10 filter I find that I get strange coloring issues on my pictures sometimes. Maybe it has something to do with the way different wavelengths of light are bent and manipulated by the close-up filter, or maybe it’s all in my head. It is what it is though, and instead of trying to fix or change it I usually just settle on leaving the picture how it is and try to learn something for next time. The purple flower in the center is sharp, colorful, and really draws your attention which is what I was going for. And in that regard I think the photo worked out, so It’s all good.

So thanks to Gina for pointing me in the direction of this flower, and to anyone reading this who is looking for something interesting to photograph…try walking outside your house or office and taking just a bit of a closer peed at the world around you. You might be surprised at what you find.