Diamond lake flowers

I have been neglecting my camera, but I finally got a chance to use it recently.  California has received some unprecendented rain this year, and the plants are coming back to life!  Everything is green and full of pollen.  I have been taking an antihistamine every morning to avoid death by sneezing.   

My family combined a trip to my grandmother with a trip to Diamond Lake, where there's a nice trail around part of the artificial lake.  This trail is bordered by thick clusters of wildflowers and native grasses of a wide variety of colors and textures, and photos can't really convey how pretty it all is.  

I used my XT4 and my 90mm Panagor macro for everything.  I did have my 18-55mm, but I find myself using it less and less.  I do like it, but just prefer the 90mm for most of what I do with my camera. 

The macro lens is good for landscapes (technically it's closer to a 1:2 lens than 1:1 but that is totally fine for my hobbyist needs). 

 

 

 

And of course, the macro lens is good for close-ups. 

 All of these images (except the next, which has been cropped) are straight out of camera.  This was early in the morning, maybe 8 am, and the light was bright but not harsh.  Colors are rendered accurately and generously.  I was excited to get everything into capture one and mess around, but I'm honestly very happy with a lot of images as-is.  I do want to spend some time and crop a few, and also do minor adjustments, but the camera and the subject did a good job of making some pleasing photographs. 

I got a few good pictures of this horsefly.  I took quite a few, and only a couple were sharp enough to keep. 

 

 

I liked this rock.  Contrasting angles and texture with surrounding flowers. 

This lizard was kind enough to hold still.  I regret not getting a picture with focus on the head and the tail in frame. 

Classic California -- lupines and poppies! 

Just some flowers. 

A very large grasshopper!  Also kind enough to hold still for a few photographs.  I don't think I'm 100% happy with any -- the ones where the head is in focus crop some of the tail, and vice versa. 

I think this was a thistle of some sort.  Looked spiky and dangerous but is actually soft. 

I do not know what type of flower these tall stalks are, but they provide some visual interest rising above the bright poppies below.  

One of my favorites from the day.  Just some flowers, being pretty.  

More lupines!

A bi-colored flower of some sort.  I saw bees frequenting these flowers but did not get a useable image of a bee all day.  

Some pretty grasses!

This is one of the early shots when I was figuring out the right exposure/aperture for the day.  Turned out very dark overall but I like the effect. 

And on the other hand, the brightness of this one just works.  

I like these curly flowers.  

A pollinator!  Poor framing, but this is the only image I got, as it was spooked immediately after and flew away.  Some cropping will help the composition.  

More macro!

I went out again today and took more pictures.  The sky was still very overcast, but I went out in the afternoon, so there was more light.  I took my tripod with me but didn't end up using it because I was walking around so much, and I could generally get sharp "enough" images after a few tries.  

The first thing I happened to photograph was this cute butterfly that kept walking around on the flower and didn't want to be photographed.  

Photo op!

 I got a few more pictures of it, though not any great ones.  

"Cinematic" (ha) crop at 16:9.  I think the antennae is in focus but the rest of the butterfly is not.  Oops.

 

This is my favorite one, even though it's the butterfly butt and it's mostly out of focus.  You can see the scales on the wing and the shallow depth of field creates an interesting effect in my opinion.  I'm amazed at the detail I was able to capture! 

Butterfly butt!

 

That's actually the last one I got before it flew away.  

There weren't many live flowers to photograph, much like yesterday.  

 

This flower was nice though.  

Some sort of daisy.  Still slightly more blurry than I'd like.

Something is eating the eucalyptus trees: 

Yummy eucalyptus leaves!  Don't eat these unless you're a koala, or whatever bug is eating them here.

 

I also re-tried the "use the macro lens as a telephoto lens" thing and had mixed results.  After a lot of modification in Capture One Express (exposure down, contrast way up, brightness up), the images look closer to real life.  I think the contrast is the biggest thing missing from the straight-out-of camera images.  

Super weird to see banana trees in an area with oak/eucalyptus.  Apparently this area had a nursery and they just left some plants when they closed up shop.

Yes, need to clean my sensor.  But also -- look at those brave people!

Still excited to use this lens even more.  I hope that there's better light next weekend.  And in a month or so, monarch butterflies should be migrating and taking their annual break very close to me -- hopefully I can find a time with fewer people to visit in a COVID-friendly way. 

First pictures with a Panagor 90mm, f/2.8, 1:1 macro lens (and "my" Nikon D40)

I have a Nikon D40.  It is a relatively old crop-sensor DSLR (announced in 2006!), and it isn't actually mine.  It's my dad's camera.  But I borrowed it and he hasn't needed it back yet, so it lives with me.  It has a whopping 6.1 MP, can shoot up to 2.5 frames per second, and 3 auto-focus points.  It cannot do video.  

However, it definitely works and takes pictures!  

I've wanted a macro lens for quite a long time.  The only thing stopping me from getting one is the cost of macro lenses.  They are, to put it lightly, incredibly expensive.  And I wasn't sure I wanted to invest a lot of money for a nice lens if I wasn't sure I was going to stick with a Nikon body for the future, since I do want to upgrade to a newer camera soon.  

Two days ago, I found a listing on craigslist for a $95 macro lens, Nikon F-mount.  Too enticing to pass up!  I bought it from the seller today.  

Each of these dead flower buds was about an inch wide!  Not super sharp, yay for unsteady hands.

The lens is totally manual.  Aperture and focus are controlled on the lens, and it's so old that it doesn't communicate with the camera at all.  So images don't save with aperture info, and I also don't get exposure information -- lots of test images are needed. 

Here's the lens fully retracted: 

 

 And here's the lens fully extended.  

My SO made some, ahem, colorful remarks about this lens's ability to elongate so magnificently.  

The markings on the lens are still sort of a mystery to me.  I know some correspond to magnification level, and some appear to be distance to object for focus.  There are still a few I haven't figured out though.  

The focus ring is nice and heavy -- it takes quite a few turns to get from one end to the other though, definitely not something that would be fun to use for a fast-moving subject.  The aperture dial has clicks for half stops as well, and is a little less clicky/heavy as the one on my Rokinon, but still nice to use.  

The lens is in very good condition and works beautifully as a macro lens.  It's a pretty bad telephoto lens, but can produce some passable shots.  Doesn't seem to do portraits well, but would make some interesting photos, I think.  

My main issue in picture-taking is my really shaky hands, and without any stabilization in the lens or in the body, I generally need a very fast shutter speed and very wide aperture to take sharp pictures, plus good light.  (Tripods would help, of course, but they're heavy and slow to set up).  That means very shallow depth of field, and if the subject moves (wind!), the picture gets blurry all over again.  

Right after I picked up the lens, I went out to a fairly secluded area (because COVID) and took some pictures.  It was overcast, and the light disappeared pretty quickly after the first thirty minutes, and it was also pretty breezy, but I did get some nice pictures.  I also got a ton of terrible, blurry pictures.  Have I mentioned my shaky hands? 

 I'm excited to go out again and re-try with better light!  

The very first picture I took (with the "proper" exposure, more or less).  I hadn't bought the lens just yet...

One of the next few, right after I bought the lens!  No blurring added in post, no cropping.  1:1 magnification and slightly blurry, but still awesome.  The plant was a couple feet across and this is just the center.

Dead flowers.

More dead flowers!  Different type this time.

Dead grass.  (Notice a trend?  It's autumn, everything is dead right now).

Using the macro lens as a "regular" lens.  These are the same flowers as in the first picture of dead flowers.

Go Gauchos!  Trying to mimic a telephoto.  This was the sharpest it wanted to get.  Pretty dang fuzzy, even for the D40.

Better attempt at a telephoto lens.  Taken from the top of a hill, ~50 feet away from the birds.