Different Lenses for Different Images

 

Our Japanese Magnolia is blooming, has been for several weeks. It is almost done now. Last week I spent a bit of the day photographing this magnificent tree.  Most years the tender blooms get hit by cold weather and it doesn't last its full time. This year it did.  I fell in love with these trees years ago, seeing the ones in downtown Macon.  So much more beautiful than the cherry trees.

Anyway, this year I did it right, shot some with about every lens I have, or at least from the extreme long to the extreme wide, and in between.  I started out with the 600mm, getting the nice isolated shot above. That old Nikkor 600 remains so sharp and crisp. Lord knows its a hand-full. I could not hand-hold it in my prime, much less now as an old man.  And I used to roam the sidelines at Atlanta Stadium with that thing on a heavy tripod.

 

I took a ladder out and climbed up into the tree and shot with various wide angles.  Really like the one here  with my fisheye. You can really see the heart of the bloom and the tree as well.  I stayed on the ladder and tried the 70-300 with a +4 close-up lens for the last shot.  Made some very nice contrast between the different shots with different lenses.

 

This is a good way to see different views of common, every day subjects, by trying all your different lenses,across the different ranges.  It is a good lesson to shoot them from a distance as well as close as you can focus. Very different results.  Also a good way to learn your lenses.

So, go shoot, have fun and learn.

Using Close-up Lenses

 

 I mentioned buying close-up lenses a while back and thought this would be a good time to talk about them. They are great when photographing flowers, among other things, and this is about to be flower time.  Close-up lenses look more like filters than lenses, and screw into the front of a regular lens.   They let your lens focus closer than it normally does, giving more magnification. 

The lenses each have a number(+1, +2, +4, etc) and can be bought singly or in sets. I have +1, +2, +4 and +10.  The number represents the fraction of a meter that you need to be away from your subject.  This is not exact.

When using them. you can use your camera's metering system as always, but it is sometimes easier to use manual focus than autofocus. And depth of field is very, very limited, as you can see in the above photo.

The close-up lenses can be stacked, increasing the magnification.  Put the 1, 2 and 4 together and you have a +7.

 

 These two photos are of a camellia bloom. The first shot is with the +4 close-up lens on my 70-300 zoomed to 195mm.  The close-up lenses work better on longer lenses than on shorter lenses, giving more magnification. You just have to buy the right filter size. These are 58mm , and that refers to the threaded filter size, not the focal length of the lens.  Above photo, you can see the ant crawling around, and the pollen is quite obvious.

  The second photo is shot with the same lens, with no close-up lens. The lens was set in Macro mode so I was focused as close as I could normally get, zoomed to a maximum 300mm. You can see the ant, out of focus, climbing up the back of the bloom.  The 1, 2, and 4 work quite well, the +10 is not very good quality, what I get for buying less expensive close-up lenses.  I just wanted something to play with.

Close-up lenses are a good, inexpensive way to try close-up photography. They require a bit of getting use to. The best way to try 'em out is put one on the front of your lens, crank the focus ring to the minimum focusing distance, then move the camera in close to your subject til you have it in focus.

Have fun!