The Quiet Picture

The candle larkspur (Delphinium elatum) has been on my wanted-list for years just like the nettle-leaved bellflower in the previous post. Except that I didn’t know it was the candle larkspur until today - I’ve just seen this tall blue flower grow behind an enclosed pasture, but never got a closer look. Either I’ve completely missed the peak of the bloom (out on vacation) or the pasture has been closed (horses). But now I noticed that the pasture was open, and the flowers are at their best. So there I was, looking up at the flowers - that’s how tall they were! Wishing for a higher tripod is normally not something you do with flower photography, but I found some shorter individuals and got to marvel and photograph this stately flower up close. Very impressive!

I had planned to drive out to photograph the sunset, but a small thunder front moved in and had me stay at home. The weather was very local though, a raincloud above my house but clear skies in front. This created the unusual phenomenon of a rainbow on blue sky, so I hurried around with the camera to find an angle where there wouldn’t be a streetlight or a chimney sticking out at the bottom of the frame.

When the raincloud had passed, I gave up my plan A and went for the nettle-leaved bellflowers instead. I’ve missed them in their bloom every year so far, but this summer I was determined to catch them and I knew they had just started to open. I figured it’s easier to catch a sunset than this nettle-leaved-bellflowers-after-the-rain-in-evening-light opportunity, so I had to make the most of it!

My neighbour: I heard you’re a photographer?
Me: Yes…
My neighbour: Can you set up my camera so that it prints the date on the picture?

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If you’re wondering why I posted this, I’m guessing that you’re not a photographer… bit of an inside joke, I guess. Except that it really happened, may the gods of photography forgive me but I did set up the time stamp!

Just a little something from Monday, actually, but I didn’t get around to processing the pictures until now. Been busy riding my motorbike!

The flower is not fully in bloom yet, the petals will curve all the way around so the flower looks like a crown. This is normally a garden flower here, but I found a bunch which is growing wild - the place used to be a garden, but no one is tending to the flowers anymore.

I can’t even remember the last time I rode my motorbike. First it was too hot, then it was too cold, then it was too rainy, then I didn’t have time, then I was too tired, then I wasn’t even at home… and before you know it, half the summer has gone by and the bike is stuck in the garage. But today I finally got on the road again, and to my surprise I hadn’t forgotten anything. On the contrary, it feels like riding the motorbike is now even easier than it was before. And more fun!

Yes, shocking, that’s actually me. The picture is taken by my MC-mentor (I cropped it to re-compose) and the camera is provided courtesy of my new toy - Nokia N95 8GB. Somehow I managed to resist the lure of the iPhone (what really killed it for me was the sub-par camera and Telia’s insane pricing) but since I had gotten used to the idea of having a smartphone, I got the N95 instead. Apparently it has one of the best mobile cameras, but coming from an SLR background I’m not really impressed. It’s almost good enough for these “on-the-road-and-resized-for-the-web” shots anyway and I wasn’t expecting it to do anything better either.

From one tourist magnet to another. I’ve never been to the Nipfjället nature reserve even though I’ve been thinking about getting there for a few years now. The reserve consists of two mountains, Nipfjället and Städjan, where Nipfjället is the higher peak but Städjan probably more famous with its volcano like shape which is fairly unique in Sweden. Regardless, it’s the lower Nipfjället peak (”Lillnipen”) where the people flock, so naturally I headed for the highest peak called “Mulen”. The parking lot was full of cars, but I was all alone on the mountain. It’s not a difficult hike by any means so I don’t understand why more people don’t take the trouble. I have no ambitions about being a mountain climber and the easier the hike is, the better, but I just don’t want to mingle with small children up on a mountain like I saw them going up Lillnipen. There’s easy, and then there’s too easy!

Well, I’m back in the mountains, but this time I’m mingling with the (other) tourists in the popular Fulufjället National Park, the popular part being the Njupeskär waterfall. I’m doing my best to avoid the crowds so I first drove to the Göljån creek which became famous in August 1997 when a record downpour transformed the quiet creek into a raging torrent, washing away some 10000 cubic metres of forest. They estimate that when it was at its worst, there was 500 times more water going down than normal. Since the old riverbed couldn’t contain all the water and debris it was flushing away, the water found new ways down the slope and the creek is now meandering in several small trickles. I was absolutely spell-bound when I got to the fern covered forest. It’s the kind of scenery I normally just dream about!

For more information about Göljån, read the PDF brochure (in Swedish), or check out this page (in English).

In the evening when the crowds had finally left Njupeskär, I headed to the big waterfall. My plan was to get some good Njupeskär pictures with the help of HDR, because otherwise I think it’s a real nightmare to photograph. In order to get anything out of it even with HDR, you need a reasonable sky behind the falls. When I was approaching, all I got was this milky white cloud so my heart sank. So much for that, then.

When I was leaving the falls, the scenery changed though and suddenly I had a view where the ugly cloud was just a small detail and the sun was still shining on the left side of the ravine. Now I knew I had my pictures!

Just a plug for minnak.net: I’ve updated Flowers and Orchids. The Orchids gallery in particular is brimming with new flowers, most of them already seen in the blog but check out the last one - I caught the bog orchid today!

Or, Sigma 150mm 1:2.8 APO Macro DG HSM EX, to be exact.

It’s fair to say that I have really put the Sigma 150mm macro lens through its paces this summer. It has been my main tool since the flower season started and it has constantly produced outstanding results (well, technically speaking anyway - the artistic issues are created behind the camera). I’ve mentioned my reasoning behind getting this lens, but just to re-iterate: I needed a 1:1 macro like my old 100mm lens, and I needed the background/foreground control of the 300mm tele that I’ve used as a close-up lens (with an extension tube). I was tired of always having to choose which lens to take with me, and the weight and super-thin DOF of the 300mm made it a bit awkward tool at times, while the background/foreground control was a breeze with the big gun but no joy with the 100mm lens. Having decided that a long macro would fit the bill, I only needed to decide between 150mm and 180mm. In the end, I opted to give up those 30mm in favour for a larger aperture (f2.8 vs f3.5) and a bit lighter construction, and it was the correct decision - I haven’t missed the extra mm’s at any point.

This lens is nicknamed “Bugzilla” on the web. It’s because many photographers favour it for insect photography, I’m however mainly interested in flowers so the review might be slanted towards that subject matter. Also keep in mind that I have been using the lens on a Canon 40D body with an APS-C size sensor.

Sharpness

The Sigma 150mm macro is incredibly sharp, right on par with the Canon 100mm macro I used to have. Almost all macro work is done with manual focus, and thanks to the large aperture of f2.8 this lens produces a bright image in the viewfinder, making it easy to focus in all but the worst of conditions. Used together with an angle-finder, correct focus is almost unmissable thanks to the magnification of the angle-finder. And let’s face it, the angle-finder is an essential tool in macro photography, I don’t know how I ever managed without it (oh now I remember - I used to have headaches from all the awkward positions I had to twist my head).

The sample image is a crop from a full-size image, straight out of the 40D except for WB adjustment and RAW conversion. Please note that I do not use any sharpening in camera, so there is a whole lot to be gained in post-processing. ISO 200, f3.2.

The sharpness starts at maximum aperture of 2.8 so I don’t hesitate to open up if the situation calls for it. Normally I step down to f4 though, but it’s only for adding just a touch of DOF rather than any sharpness considerations. I haven’t done any testing to find the sweet spot, because as far as I’m concerned, it’s all sweet!

Ease of use

The lens is almost too heavy to be hand-held, and I’ve only used it without support when I’ve used it as a tele and the shutter speed has been fast enough. I was aware of this before I got the lens so I do not count it against it, I’m just stating a fact. In a way it’s also a good thing, because it forces me to always use the tripod for close-ups and that will slow down the process of taking a picture, which I need - I have a bad habit of rushing things, even if I’ve told myself time after time to slow down.

I’ve also found it to be a good lens for stitched panoramas, I used it with good results last winter when I was photographing the full moon in the mountains. I also use it to pick landscape details, even if 150mm on a crop factor camera is a bit on the long side. But then again, I got it for close-up work so anything else is a bonus.

Auto-focus

The lens is equipped with a focus limiter with three settings - minimum to 52cm focus distance, 52cm to infinity and entire range. Initially when started using this lens for close-ups, I found the ranges a bit awkwardly set but since manual focus is the best way of focusing, the limiter is hardly ever needed. I have set it on 52cm to infinity for those odd landscape pictures I take with AF. I don’t have complaints about the AF, it’s possible that I might call it a bit slow but it really isn’t an issue with what all the manual focusing I do.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would have to say that there is no such thing as a perfect lens, but this is as close to perfect for me as it gets. Sigma really out-did themselves and I will have to take back all the bad words I said about them a couple of years ago. The lens is also very good value for money, with the glare guard and lens collar included in the box. If you’re in the market for a long macro, you can’t go wrong with the Sigma 150mm f2.8 EX!

Sample images

For more samples, click the sigma 150mm category to view all my posts with images taken with this lens. You can also check out the Flowers and Orchids galleries on minnak.net to see and compare pictures I’ve taken with the Sigma and the two other lenses mentioned in this review (Canon 100mm f2.8 and Canon 300mm f4L).

Somehow the weather got the best of me. Of course, it’s nice to have warm sunshine so I shouldn’t complain, it’s better than constant rain for sure. But then there’s the feeling that I’m here too early in the season. And I’m really getting fed up with having to hike up mountains, yes I get to see great landscape and the feeling of reaching the treeline and then the top of the mountain is unbeatable… but I’m just getting tired of it now, that’s all. I think I need a holiday from my holiday.

So I will leave Härjedalen for now. Instead of heading straight home, I drove to Ljungdalen to check out Torkilstöten, which is probably my favourite flower location. The fact that it’s easy to reach (the road takes you to the tree line) doesn’t hurt, but it’s really the flowers that make it stand out. This is also the location for the alpine chamorchis that I mentioned earlier, but I had a feeling that I was way too early to see it. But there are plenty of other flowers, so time just flew by as I was walking up and down, left and right on the mountain side. I think next year though, I will have to come here in mid-July or even later.

Now that I was north from Flatruet, I thought I might as well take the road to Åsarna and check out the Rövrafallet waterfall east from Storsjö. I was also interested in seeing how the new road was shaping up, they’re now working on the Ljungdalen-Storsjö stretch but the rest of it is already done. And I was well impressed, it’s an absolute joy to drive and a far cry from the stress-inducing and car-chipping experience that the old road used to be. They have also built plenty of picnic places and lay-bys so kudos for that.

The waterfall turned out to be bigger than I expected, and I was actually positively surprised. It’s that awkward size of waterfall that I normally don’t like, but somehow I thought that this was nice, even if I didn’t get any good pictures. If you ever take the Åsarna-Ljungdalen road, then I’d recommend a visit to Rövrafallet. Take the road signed to Tossåsen (it’s actually the old road so you can compare it to the new), the Rövrafallet parking is less than 2 km on the left. Leave your car at the picnic place, unless you have a high clearance vehicle so you can drive to the trailhead (it will save you a whopping 200m). The trailhead is marked and the trail is well worn, it’s an easy hike of 800m to the falls. There’s a wind shelter and even a toilet, so the place is just waiting for visitors, but I would imagine that not many people visit the place though. Is it even mentioned in any tourist brochure?

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When I got home, it was 13°C and overcast. I’m not gonna complain!