Since I am such a macro photography freak, minimum focus distance is a very important for me to know. I will admit -- sometimes I know how close I can get and other times I find out by pushing it -- getting so close that I can't focus -- so I do have to back off a little.
If you know your minimum focus distance you have a good idea of how close you can get. But -- do you know -- visually -- what 17 inches looks like? I don't.
The photo on the blog today is another from last Wednesday. This is a close up of one of the peach blossoms. This was also taken with my Tamron 14mm lens. The photo from the blog entry last Thursday was a wide landscape shot taken with that same lens. You can see by comparing these two photos -- the close up and the landscape just how versatile such an ultra wide angle lens can be.
Usually I don't use this lens much. Like many other photographers, I feel I stereotype this lens as being good for great wide open landscapes and not much else. I purposely used it in the orchard and also, purposely got super close with it to see what it would do. The minimum focus distance for this lens is 8 inches. Who carries a ruler in their camera bag? Not me. So I got close -- really close -- and some times too close. When I knew I was too close -- I backed up a little. Just a little -- just enough to allow the lens to focus.
The aperture for this shot was f/2.8 and the shutter speed was 1/4000. Pretty darn fast shutter, huh? Well, just think -- when the aperture is open that much -- as far as that lens would allow -- more light comes in so the shutter can work faster. A super fast shutter was becoming important to me as a breeze was picking up. The blossoms were not blowing much -- but the petals were. Just a little breeze when you are working that close can ruin a photo.
I really like the shallow depth of field. Also -- as with the other photo -- I love the spring colors presented to me that day. This photo was taken in bright sunlight at almost high noon.
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