Minimum Focus Distance

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.

Photo Wednesday

Last spring (and fall) I would head out on Wednesday mornings to take photos.  Most of the time my Wednesday is a free day.  A friend of mine and I went out a lot last year.  Over the past weekend we were talking about how we need to do that again.  Yesterday was the first "Photo Wednesday" of 2009.

When we would do this before, we usually had a specific location in mind.  Some of the places we visited last year -- when it was much warmer -- we decided it would be best to come back during cooler weather.  Another spot was so overgrown -- we decided winter and less weeds would be better.  During our conversation last weekend -- we concluded that we had not been back to any of those places.  The weather is warming and weeds are starting to grow.

Our main goal destination yesterday was the place that was overgrown last year.  It was OK -- and I took a bunch of photos.  But, I think my photos do not live up to my expectations.  This happens a lot when I remember a place from months ago and build up this excitement that I am going there -- and the photos are going to be wonderful.  I need to remember to build low expectations and then sit back and allow the place to wow me when I get there.

While we were near the main destination we found a couple other spots of promise.  I am sort of happy with some of the images.  One grand find was a nice stand of bamboo that had a great greenish yellow color.  I have not processed any of those photos yet -- but I plan to spend some time with them.

Another spot was an old church.  I am thinking of going back at a different time of day to take more photos of this place.  It is very interesting -- a lot of angles, windows, adornaments.

Then I had an idea -- I thought I remembered something.  As we were approaching what I thought I remembered -- well -- it was not what I remembered.  It must have been some other two-lane country road.  Who knows.  But, by the time we drove that far -- we were close to another spot I knew and had planned to return to in the spring.  We decided to go a bit further to check it out and perhaps make a plan to return soon.  

Why had I wanted to return?  For one thing the place was very interesting to me.  I posted a photo of this little roadside cemetery back in September, 2008: Zebulon.  The cemetery is interesting and I remembered seeing through the trees behind it was a peach orchard.  You can see the peach tree when you are standing in the cemetery.  I had thought a great photo would be the blooming trees in the distance with the tombstones as the main subject.  So yeah, I took that photo -- it is fine -- it is wonderful.  But the peach orchard all alone was prime photo opportunity!

Yes the peaches were blooming already!  I had not expected that.  In fact, I told my friend -- "I want to see how close the trees are to blooming so I can come back in a week or so."  As we neared the spot you could see the pink peach blooms and we thought wow!  We also thought -- lunch will be late today!

The sky yesterday was gloomy -- fog and overcastness (is that a word?) did not burn off untl I had already taken quite a few photos of the trees.  I have some from the overcast time that I like -- but when the sun began to break through -- it was wonderful.  Those huge white puffy clouds, blue sky, hot pink blooms, and the green grass made a beautiful 'Welcome Spring' photo!

Since I wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity, I used the Lensbaby 3G, my Tamron 18-250 zoom, and the Tamron 14mm in the field.  I was so glad I had the 14mm with me.  Not only did I take the opportunity to play with a variety of lenses, I played with a bunch of different aperture settings.  The photo on the blog today was taken with the 14mm.  My shutter speed was 1/320 and the aperture was f/9.  The photo was taken right at about noon.  I would love to get back to take more -- at a better time of day for lighting.  But really, with these, the sky was excellent.

All in all I uploaded 348 photos yesterday -- I have not even started looking over most of them.  I was most excited about many in the orchard -- they get priority.  I took more than 348 photos.  Some of them were deleted in camera before I ever uploaded any.  I love digital.

Snow Day!

I am trying to remember the last time we had a decent snow day in the south Atlanta area.  I can't remember.   Today was a halfway decent snow day.  Ideally the temperature could have been slightly colder for the best accumulation -- but there for a while when the snow was falling at a good rate -- we had a nice build up on the trees.  The flakes falling were very large and very wet.  They quickly covered trees and blanketed branches.  

I used four different lenses today.  The Tamron 18-250mm zoom was the most used.  I did get out the Composer with the telephoto attachment, the good ol' 50mm, and the 14mm.  The photo on the blog showing the sidewalk was taken with the 14mm.  

The photo of Rosebud out in the beginning of the snow -- and really the others on the blog were taken with the Tamron zoom.  I switched back and forth from auto to manual focus.  I like auto when I am in a hurry so I can be sure to nail the focus I want.  The problem with today was that the snowflakes were throwing off the auto focus.  When the snow got very heavy -- I had to switch to manual focus.

All of the photos were taken in color -- and as I usually do -- I converted to black and white with the Silver Efex plug in.  The photos were very monochromatic anyway -- the only thing is with the pine -- you could see some of the deep green of the needles -- but I prefered the black and white to really put the focus on the snow.

The photo showing the snow falling and the mailbox -- well -- I just like this composition.  Again this photo was very monochromatic -- but I took it all the way with the black and white conversion.

I am thinking that I may have created the 2009 Christmas card today!