Backyard Photography
Colorado is extremely windy today. I’m talking tangle-your-hair, knock-your-patio-furniture-over wind. In the middle of these gusts, rain clouds are dumping giant drops of water and tornadoes are being spotted just East of my suburban neighborhood. In other words….today is the perfect day to stay inside and read a book.
However, my dad let me borrow his Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-300MM lens yesterday, and I wanted to at least test it out. My regular lens is an 18-55MM, so I don’t usually get the luxury of shooting things from far away. So, I decided to give it a quick test run in my backyard.
This cattle skull is deep into my neighbor’s backyard. With my dad’s lens, I was able to zoom in enough to capture even the tiniest crack running across the cheek. Of course, this lens is much longer than my other lens and with the wind blowing like crazy it was tough keeping a steady hold on my camera.
This black bird was keeping a close eye on me from far away. Probably not the sharpest picture (again, the wind was shaking my camera like crazy), but if you click on the above image for the full size, you can make out the bird’s eye.
These two shots were about all I could handle of the outside elements today. I will be testing out this lens more over the next week. I’m trying to determine if I should bring this lens, or my standard 18-55MM with me to Italy in a couple months.
Tell me. What’s your favorite lens for your DSLR?
Jason Stolken:
April 15th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Nice pictures Wendy! I love your watermark! My favorite lens is the only one I’ve got
18-135MM. I hope to get a 50MM with a nice shallow depth of field in the future.
Jason Stolken recently posted..Homeless Hotspots and Bees Are Jerks
Lucy:
April 15th, 2012 at 8:33 pm
I like the skull shot : ) Nice leading lines, and it reminds me of Georgia O’Keeffe (Erin just finished a biography assignment on her). I used to be a prime lens girls (love my 50 mm 1.4). But now, I rarely take off my 24-75mm 2.8L.
Wendy:
April 15th, 2012 at 9:40 pm
Thanks Jason! I actually just got a 50MM tonight, and I’m excited to play around with it. I bet your 18-135MM does pretty well for a variety of shots.
Wendy:
April 15th, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Thanks Lucy! I have heard of Georgia O’Keeffe, but didn’t know much about her. I went and looked at some of her art online. How interesting that Erin just did an assignment on her.
Michael Connolly:
April 16th, 2012 at 6:20 am
Hey Wendy,
As far as a lens to bring to Rome with, you will want a more wide angle lens then a telephoto. When I went to Rome I had all my gear (7D w/ 15-85mm, 50mm 1.4 and 70-200mm2.8L II) I mainly only used my 15-85 since I was shooting a lot of the sites and wanted to get a wide shot. This will be especially true when shooting things like the Colosseum or The Basilica of St Peter for example. I was only there for a short time so perhaps if I had more time and went back to certain sites I might have put on my 70-200 2.8L and shot things but I didn’t have enough time.
Also dont forget if your shooting on a crop sensor body like say a 1.6x crop factor then a 28mm focal length will be more like 44mm on the crop camera as opposed to a full sensor camera. This reason alone is why I choose to get a 15-85mm for my 7D as my go to lens as with the 1.6x crop factor on my 7D so this lens is more like a 24-136mm. Once I get a 5D Mk III then I will invest in the 24-70mm 2.8L.
So in conclusion for Rome I would go with a nice wide angle lens with some zoom and preferably with 2.8 for lower light situations. This will give you most use out of one lens. I am a Canon shooter so I cant recommend a Nikon lens but any lens similar to say the 24-70mm 2.8L would be great.
-m
Wendy:
April 16th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Mike – This is great info! Thank you for sharing your suggestions.
Aiza:
April 28th, 2012 at 4:56 am
Beautiful pictures! I was looking at your work and hoping that I could afford a DSLR, so I could do something like that. Wish I could do this in my camera and learn more about photography. The skull shot is my favorite. YOur Dad’s lens very nice!
Wendy:
April 28th, 2012 at 10:02 am
Thanks Aiza! You don’t necessarily need a DSLR to take great photos. Even phone cameras these days can take a nice shot. Are you familiar with composition (rule of thirds) and lighting techniques? If so, you can still take some great shots.