The Quiet Picture

I’m back at home now, had a relaxing day at work – meaning, I didn’t have to use my feet much. Coffee machine and back! I did two small hikes yesterday which puts my four day total to exactly 50 km of hiking, and I could easily go for another hike now. The only thing that is making me tired is the mosquito that kept me awake the other night, I tried to kill it but every time I switched on the light, the bug would sit still and I couldn’t find it. A male mosquito obviously because it didn’t bite me, but the noise it makes just keeps the stress hormones going and thus no sleep. But enough about the mosquitoes!

The first small hike I did yesterday was to the Svalåkläppen fell off Bruksvallarna. A very easy peak to reach from Rockvallen and then you get to eat a waffle at the Kariknallen cabin, even if their waffles are not as good as those server at Djupdalsvallen. But then again, the waffles at Djupdalsvallen are the best, period! Maybe I’ll get there in September before they close for the season…

As I was driving home and the clouds were still not clearing much, I suddenly had an idea that I should visit the Rändåfallet waterfall in Långå. I’ve been there only once before and it was years and years ago when I was shooting film. The falls are very easy to reach and they are quite nice so it was about time I paid another visit. Since there isn’t any abundance of information about the falls on the Internet, I will write another blog entry about them later – for now, just a picture that shows a small detail of the falls.

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I’ve reprocessed some of the pictures I’ve posted here in the past days. If you’re a regular reader, clear your browser cache and re-visit Thursday‘s (first picture updated) and Friday‘s posts (all pictures updated). I’ve re-done the stitched panorama in Friday’s post, I used an adjustment brush to “fade” the tree that was cut off in the frame. It’s still cut off, obviously, but I hope it’s not as distracting as it was before.

I also realised something about the Tvärån falls from Thursday. I was already speculating when I was there that I took a wrong turn and didn’t end up quite where I was supposed to end up. The thing was that as I was following the trail up the creek, there was a brook that came from the side. I was almost sure that I should’ve crossed the side brook, but there was no way I could’ve gotten across without getting my feet wet. It was too wide to jump over and too deep to wade over (without taking off my boots). And the trail that continued over on the other side was much weaker than the trail that turned to follow the side brook, thus I decided to follow the better trail. Had I had the instructions with me (forgot them in the car with the map), I would’ve taken off my boots and waded across the water, because that was the right trail to take! So now I’ve missed what presumably is the best waterfall in Tvärån, very annoying to have done all that hiking and miss the target. Which means that I will have to get back there one day, long and boring hike or not!

I was fortunate enough to get to borrow the new Canon 100mm f2.8 IS macro lens this weekend. I’ve always wanted a macro lens with IS and a few years ago I had the 100mm macro without IS, which I then traded for the 150mm macro. I’ve never regretted getting the longer focal length, but using a long and heavy macro lens requires good support, so the tripod or the beanbag has to go wherever the lens goes. Shooting with this setup is very rewarding, but there’s something to be said for spontaneity as well – enter image stabilisation.

So now I’ve been out with this lens, sans tripod, and I must say it really works. I won’t be reviewing the lens because there’s nothing to review, I mean it’s tack sharp (anything else would be shocking) and issues like vignetting or barrel distortion are never a problem with macro (I doubt this lens has either anyway). So the only thing that’s interesting for me is what I can do with 100mm and image stabilisation and that’s what I set out to find out.

Having had the 150mm lens for a few years now, I had my doubts about the depth of field of the 100mm lens. I like using diffused foregrounds when possible and I also like completely feature-less backgrounds. I struggled to get both when using the 100mm lens in the past, but now that I had it again, I started wondering if part of the problem back then was that I was just not very experienced as a macro photographer. Either I’m better at choosing my subjects now or I am handling the situation in a different way, but background control wasn’t nearly as difficult as I remember it was. But having the lens for such a short period, it’s not possible to test it in all situations and I reckon the background would come into play when shooting in tight spaces where the background is closer to the subject than in the above picture.

The IS of the lens is great. It’s the new generation IS which is so quiet that I had to check a couple of times that IS really was on because I’m used to the sounds of my 300mm and 24-105mm lenses. The picture of the moth was taken with a 1/40 shutter speed, it’s marginally soft but completely acceptable. It would’ve been impossible without a tripod using a non-IS 100mm or 150mm lens (impossible for me anyway, I know some people are better at hand holding the camera than I am). So if I want to take a similar picture with a non-IS lens, I would have to start setting up the tripod and hope that the moth is still there when I’m ready to take the shot. Shooting without a support setup is very liberating, the threshold of taking a picture is lower because sometimes I just simply think if a subject is worth setting up the tripod, instead of thinking if a picture is worth taking at all.

It’s been nice trying out this lens, but when I give it back I won’t miss it. It’s a great lens for the macro photographer on the move, but I’ve developed such a good relationship with my Sigma 150mm f2.8 macro that I can’t see myself ever parting with it. Yes I still definitely want a macro lens with IS, but I’m fairly sure that in the long run I would miss those additional 50mm if I traded the Sigma 150mm for the Canon 100mm IS. So now I’m just waiting for a long macro lens with stabilisation!

I had found out that we have a rare primrose growing around here, bird’s-eye primrose (Primula farinosa). In fact, this is the only known place where it grows in the Hälsingland province and the flower is on the decline elsewhere in Sweden as well. We weren’t sure if it would already be blooming, but it’s better to be early than late so we checked out the place. We were happy to find buds, but then when we were already on our way back, we found some that were already in bloom. Oh joy! I just had to take a picture, ugly background or not… I will be back next weekend to photograph them better, most of them should be open by then.

With nothing better to do after lunch, I just settled down in my hammock to enjoy the warm day and started to read a book. Then I happened to glance at the neighbour’s garage and noticed that the ostrich fern behind it are beginning to unfurl. No time like present, I grabbed the camera to look at them through the macro lens. I was distracted by a caterpillar hanging from a bird cherry branch next to me, the wind was tossing it around and it landed on this leaf and looked luminous in the backlight. With a lot of patience and quick reflexes I was able to squeeze in a few shots, some of which were actually in focus – the wind was really not making things easy. And while I was up photographing the caterpillar, I noticed that the bird cherry blooms looked just perfect.

In the evening I took the Tricker for a spin. I had to cut it short because it was just simply too hot for the motorbike clothes. Warm days are not made for biking.

Or as the Swedes would say it, Humleblomster och en humla.

I was just setting up the rig when this bumblebee showed up. Knowing that it will not wait for me to finish setting up things, I fired the shutter and hoped that I got the exposure, sharpness and composition. Exposure, yes. Sharpness – good enough, but not pin sharp. Composition – yikes. All over the place, so I had to do some creative cropping in Lightroom to rescue what I could. So not a real keeper by any means, but I just didn’t have the heart to delete it. It was my first picture of the day, a serendipity at 9:01 on a warm Sunday morning. Life is good.

The day improved later in the afternoon so I headed for the overgrown field where I had photographed purple avens in June – I figured that the place should yield some other flowers as well and was secretly hoping for thistles. I got rewarded as there were thistles-a-plenty, with bumblebees busily working on them. I set up shop close to two big thistles so that I could easily point the camera on either one of them depending on which one was getting more of the action. And then all I needed to do was to wait for the customers to arrive and there was hardly a quiet moment! A beautiful butterfly wouldn’t have hurt, but all I got was some small(ish) brown(ish) thing that I can’t find in my bug book – my butterfly identifying skills are infinitely worse than my flower ditto.
I also tried to catch a bumblebee in flight, but I couldn’t quite figure out the trick. When the bees take off to flight, they don’t seem to prepare it in any way so I always missed the moment. This one I caught by accident – I was shooting the other three bees when a fourth arrived. Yes I know the flying one is OOF but I don’t care!