Shallow

When DW and I go for a nature walk, I almost always bring my Nikon D7200 D-SLR with my 70–300mm lens attached, just in case we spy a bird or other creature and I have an opportunity to snap a photo of it.

At it's maximum zoom level and with a cropped sensor, that lens is effectively a 450mm lens with a nine-times magnification. It's the most powerful lens/camera combination I have in terms of zooming in on something.

It's not the fastest lens that I have by any stretch of the imagination. At that focal length, the widest aperture that I have for it is f/5.6. And with that magnification, the depth of field at that aperture setting is pretty shallow.

I don't care. When I'm looking to photograph a bird or other creature, I'm not interested in what's in the background.

The last couple of times that DW and I have been out, we've made our way to Fletcher Wildlife Gardens, just off Prince of Wales Drive, across from the Central Experimental Farm and next to the Arboretum. As I had mentioned in Monday's blog post, the flowers in the gardens at this time of year are spectacular.

This week's Wordless Wednesday also highlighted some flowers from Fletcher.

Because I've only been carrying my D7200 with my 70–300mm lens when we've visited these gardens, I've had to stand at least two metres from my subject to get that big, slow lens to focus on anything. And I've found that when I want to zoom right up on a flower, I need to stand even further back unless I'm trying to capture a flower that's further in the ravine.

I've been shooting flowers for decades. In fact, when I had purchased my first SLR, my Minolta X-700, back in 1986, the first photo that I ever took with it was a flower in my mother's garden.

But when I looked at my first few photos that I shot at Fletcher Wildlife Gardens, a couple of weeks ago, I really liked the results that I was getting with this camera setup. At 300mm and f/5.6, the background was all but obliterated. The heads of the flowers were the only clear spot in the shot.

If the background was a complex assortment of other flowers, the bokeh effect seemed heightened.

DW and I returned to the gardens again, last Saturday, hoping to capture photos of birds. With none presenting themselves among the flowers, I turned my attention to the flowers instead, zooming in at maximum magnification and the widest aperture, capturing beautiful flowers with the shallowest of focal depth.

It's like I've rediscovered photographing flowers. And now, I want a bigger telephoto lens with a wider aperture... (I really need a benefactor!).

Happy Friday!

New Skills

My best friend, Stuart, was one of my earliest influences in photography. In high school, we were both part of the yearbook team, capturing images that would become memories for us and for the entire population of J.S. Woodsworth Secondary School.

There's no doubt that Stu was, in turn, under the influence of his father, who had been an avid shutterbug since his youth; so much so that his friends and family gave him a nickname that would stick with him for the rest of his life: Buff.

Buff would critique Stuart's and my photos, pointing out the rule of thirds, aperture and depth of field, and offering us helpful tips. These were so helpful that when I think of these tips today, I can't help but hear Buff's voice in my head.

A couple of years later, in 1986, when I finally bought my very own SLR—my Minolta X-700—and headed out to photograph some autumn leaves, Buff's advice came to me: "If you overexpose by a stop, you can get the best colour out of the leaves." He had explained that the built-in light meter would try to find a balance and that more times than not, it would muddy the colours as it tried to even out dark from bright.

I made my way to the Ottawa River and found some turning leaves near the abandoned Prince of Wales train bridge. I composed a shot that would have the colourful red and yellow leaves in focus, with the bridge visible in the background.

Another tip was put to use: open the aperture so that background objects are obscured from the subject. And while I wanted to include the bridge, the leaves were what I wanted to emphasize. The bridge would not be in focus but it wouldn't be so obscured as to not be identifiable.

I remember showing the photo to Buff, after I had the image enlarged from the slide. "You have an eye for composition. And this is exposed perfectly."

I had a good mentor.

Happy Friday!

Wordless Wednesday: Spring Blooms