[Lots of pretty photos if you just scroll down. But there's only 400 words or so, if you fancy it.]
The last couple of months have seen me trying to use my 50mm and 100mm lenses a lot more. I don’t know why — probably because I used my landscape lens almost exclusively for the first half of the year. I guess you can get bored of one particular style of art, if you do it enough and don’t mix things up?
For those of you that aren’t photographers, a little lesson on lens ‘sizes’: your natural eyesight is about equivalent to the view arc/angle of a 50mm lens — i.e. the photos that were taken with a 50mm lens look most like you would see with your own eyes. We call the 50mm the ‘normal lens‘.
If you go wider than 50mm you approach ‘wide-angle’ and ‘landscape’ lenses. At 35mm things still look fairly normal, but towards 15-20mm things become very ‘stretched’ or distorted, because you are trying to focus almost 180 degrees of view onto a flat plane.
If you go narrower into the telescopic range — anything over 80mm — the field of view shrinks to just a few degrees. Telescopic photos feel very ‘condensed’, or even just ‘dense’ or ‘thick’. It’s all an effect of the light, and quite hard to explain — but just remember that depending on what kind of lens you use, you can get a very different feeling in the photo. There’s a reason portraits are taken with 50 or 80mm lenses. If you ever see a portrait that feels ‘weird’ it’s usually because they’ve been shot with a weird lens (alien-head is a classic example, if shot from above with a landscape lens)
Anyway, after shooting lots of very compressed and tight photos (at least by my standards, as I’m a landscape kiddie really) with the 50 and 100mm lenses, I whipped my landscape lens out (which is 16mm!) and headed into the countryside to take some photos. If you’ve seen yesterday’s 11 of 52, you’ve already seen one of the photos in this set, but I’ve included it for a sense of completeness. The whole set will eventually find its way to my online gallery, if you wish to buy a print (or two). In my humble opinion, I think the entire set would look rather spectacular on YOUR wall.
Without further ado: It was Autumn, the last few leaves barely clinging to the boughs. It was sunset and there were actually pretty clouds for once. I think the results speak for themselves. I bet you had no idea England could be so pretty but without being GREEN. So, with hints of orange, russet and pinky hues, I give you Tuesday’s Landscape Photogasm (#1).
Note: Titles or extra details can be found by hovering over each image.
That’s all for this week. Tomorrow… hm, I’m not sure yet. Oh, and if you’re interested in buying a print of one of these, let me know — I will be offering some kind of Christmas/Festive Season discount soon, so I might as well start it with your purchase…!
Ash
Nov 10, 2009
I really like the last one, a lot. I like the hint of light on the foliage in the front of the image.
Just because I’m a huge photo nerd I have to correct you a little. The 50mm lens is a normal lens – on a 35mm or full frame camera. On an APS sensor (i.e., the usual Canon or Nikon cropped sensors with a focal multiplier of 1.6 or 1.5, respectively) it becomes the equivalent of a 75mm lens, which is a telephoto. For a “normal” point of view on a cropped body you’d have to use, roughly, a 35mm lens.
I’m just sayin’
sebastian
Nov 10, 2009
This was a basic lesson in lens optics — not on digital camera technology.
But as you brought it up… the cropping effect from the APS-C sensor isn’t the same as using an actual 80mm lens. The optics are no different — it’s just… cropped. For example, a 50mm on an APS-C sensor would not produce the same image as an 80mm on a full-frame sensor. Similar, yes, but not the same.
You could use a 35mm instead of the 50, but it would still be wide-angle with wide-angle optics — just cropped.
But it’s beyond the scope of a basic introduction to lenses. (Correct me if I got anything wrong, incidentally.)
The last one’s my favourite tree-shot so far I think!
Ash
Nov 10, 2009
You know… I think you’re right. I’m so used to the idea that 50mm x1.5 = 75mm that I forget that you’re basically cropping the outer edges of the frame.
Oh, and I’m always good for diverting and/or derailing topics of conversation!
Ed Adams
Nov 10, 2009
Cool pics.
Love that sky.
Art
Nov 10, 2009
I liked the last one best too. The pattern of the dark branches against the sky was just lovely
pinkjellybaby
Nov 10, 2009
I love the first one… beautiful
sebastian
Nov 10, 2009
I think I might have slightly over-cooked the first one. I think it’s the most striking, but I could bring a little detail out in the foreground — but then again, I do love sky/silhouette photos.
I just listed the last one on Etsy, Art — seems it’s very popular
MinD
Nov 10, 2009
Photogasm is right. These are beautiful hun. The colors are amazing.
sebastian
Nov 10, 2009
Thanks, stern-pouter!
Nyx
Nov 11, 2009
The second is my favorite of the lot. It’s developed in all the right places
The first one is, of course, lovely as well, but the foreground tends to get a bit lost (easily fixed though). I also like the blurring around the edges of the heather flowers – it directs the eye to the central portion of the photo.
Good job!
sebastian
Nov 11, 2009
Well in the first one there’s really no light on the foreground. I could’ve brought it up, but it would still remain kind of colourless and dull.
I hope you don’t mean that the heathery one was ‘made blurry’…! That’s straight out of the camera with the 50mm.
But I’m glad we both have the same favourite. Thanks!
andhari
Nov 12, 2009
I wanna see photos you took of starry night sky that would be awesome =)
Kevin
Nov 12, 2009
All great shots. Especially like No. 2, all kinds of implied movement going on there. The heather shot reminds me of some of the ones I was trying to get this summer on the Mall, only it’s better. After years of working in newsphotography, where closer is better, I’m working on learning how to take a step back. Thanks for the reminder.
Are your photos signed and numbered?
sebastian
Nov 12, 2009
I need to take more starry photos Andhari… I will do some, for you!
#2 would be great if some kind of springbok/impala was bounding across the canvas or something. Alas
I really want to do some more people-photography (news photography!) — but I still find it quite hard to point a camera at real people.
They’re all signed and numbered. I draw the line at certificates of authenticity — but I do keep track of who has which print, and which number, so there’s some ‘security’ there.
Nyx
Nov 13, 2009
The heathery one is focused where it should be Sebastian! I meant that I liked how the blurred out heather sprigs framed the focused ones, that’s all
sebastian
Nov 13, 2009
Oh GOOD! As long as we have that clear…!
Yeah, it was the framing I was drawn to