The Quiet Picture

Only three months ago I wrote about my new wideangle lens, Tokina 16-28mm. I was mighty impressed with it, but what I really didn’t see coming is that I would find out that it’s not wide enough. Yes sure enough, it’s 26-45mm on a crop sensor, but you have to consider that my previous “wide angle” was the 24-105mm zoom (38mm at widest on crop sensor). So going from 38mm to 26mm, I was sure it would be enough for me. But it wasn’t. So I did something I’ve never done before, which is by a second lens within three months so I’m now a proud owner of a Tokina AT-X 11-16mm f2.8 Pro DX and today was my first day out with it.

First impressions: It’s much smaller and lighter than the Tokina 16-28mm (of course). The build quality is just as solid as the bigger zoom, the zoom ring is a little bit stiff but it’s not a problem, and anyway it’s better like that than the Canon 24-105 which sometimes suffers from zoom creep when the lens is pointed down. And it takes on filters without any vignetting; I haven’t tried any stacking yet but as long as a polariser works, it’s all good.

Second impressions (after reviewing the pictures): It’s sharp. Even wide open. Corner sharpness is better than with the 16-28mm lens (I haven’t done any scientific testing yet, but I was impressed with what I saw).

So now I have a problem. I had almost decided that my next camera will be full frame (Canon 5D MkIII, whenever it is released), but after just one day with this new lens, I start hesitating. The small size and filter thread… it could just tip the scales towards another crop sensor (follow-up to Canon 7D, whenever it’s released). So I would say that it’s a tie at the moment and Canon will have to make the next 5D something very special to make me favour FF. Or make a total mess of the next 7D, that would also force me to reconsider my options. But all of that is still a long way ahead, until then I will happily shoot with my trusty old 40D and the trusty new Tokina 11-16mm f2.8. Honestly, if you’re looking for a serious wideangle for a crop sensor camera, then you can’t get better value for money than this!

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I did two small hikes today, first one to Hägenlammsmyran which I visited the other summer to look for wolf lichen. I found the lichen and I found a fascinating bog, I mean just look at the satellite picture (shamelessly stolen from Google Maps), all those ridges with water in between. It’s a real maze when you’re walking around, you always have to look ahead for which ridge leads to the next one, and when it leads to muddy water. Except now of course almost everything was frozen and I was able to take some shortcuts, but like I’ve said before, walking on ice makes me very nervous so I preferred to keep on the moss. The water wasn’t all frozen anyway, it was still open in the places where it was flowing from one terrace to another so you had to keep an eye out where you put your foot. But on a windy day like this, that ice worked just fine because it doesn’t ripple!

My second hike was to Svartån, but I have a few HDR’s still to process so I will put that in another post.

I finally had some holidays, if three busy days can be counted as such. But they were busy in the good way so I don’t mind! My sister came for a visit and there’s really nothing I want to show her around home so we headed to the mountains.

On Thursday we hiked up to the Kariknallen café above Bruksvallen for the obligatory waffle (yes, regular readers will have noticed my affection for the waffles) and then continued up to the Beritkläppen peak. The views were great just as you’d expect, but I was out of luck with the weather. A perfect weather for hiking is not a perfect weather for photography, but to be honest it didn’t really matter! It was just so nice to spend some time with my sister again.

Since my sister is interested in history and culture, I figured that she’d really enjoy a visit to Röros. I was right – the only disappointment was that the famous church of theirs was closed for renovation. But she got quickly over it as we were wandering around and admiring the old buildings. On the way back to Sweden I wanted to stop at Brekken and find a waterfall that I heard of a few years ago. It has taken me a long time to figure out exactly where the waterfall is and how to get there and now I finally got to see the place – and it was gorgeous. I’m telling you, it’s a real stunner! The light was a problem once again but imagine this same scene in autumn colours and soft light. I have a week’s vacation in September and I’ll be coming back here, no doubt about it!

Since this trip wasn’t about photography, I only had the 24-105mm zoom lens with me because I didn’t think I’d do any flowers this time. But when I came across these jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum) flowers in Mittådalen, it was a relief to see that the zoom lens was sufficient. It’s the first time I’ve seen the flower in the wild but that beautiful blue colour caught my eye immediately!

On Saturday it was already time to turn home. Our last hike was in the Rogen nature reserve. The lakes in Rogen are amazing, just check it out on a map and you’ll understand what I mean. I wanted to see if it was possible to get an aerial view from one of the surrounding peaks so we got up on the Handskinnsvålen fell off Käringsjön. While the landscape was amazing to see, the view over the lakes didn’t quite live up to my expectations but once again I didn’t mind. It was a great hike and who cares about the über-dull light when there’s wolf lichen to be admired? Rogen is one of the few remaining strongholds for this rare lichen.

All that remained then was the way home (we got to see a herd of hundreds of reindeer to my sister’s delight). But I’ll just say this… my sister ain’t no photographer. It turned out that her memory card was filled with pictures from the past year and the only way she could snap any new pictures was by going over the old ones and deleting something else. Which is not an ideal way to photograph any animate subjects such as the reindeer!

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!

April is my least favourite month for photography so I had no expectations when I went for a walk, only took the G10 with me just in case. The 40D is in service now anyway and no way am I going to waste film on dirty snow. Sure enough, I wasn’t seeing anything interesting at all until I came across this spruce covered with beard lichen. Beard lichen is very common  over here, which is comforting knowing that it’s an indication of good air quality. So it’s not that it was so unusual to see beard lichen, but it was sure was unusual to see colour! Not the grassy green of summer, but it will do for now.

More colour is around the corner anyway, I saw the first crocus buds yesterday. On Friday evening there wasn’t a sign of life in the crocus patch, but the sunny and warm day yesterday did wonders. There’s still plenty of snow left, but I planted my crocuses close to the house so they benefit from the early melt. I was so glad to see them!

Wolf lichen (Letharia vulpina) is fairly rare in Sweden and it’s on the decline – you’re most likely to find it in the northern Dalarna and in Härjedalen, and that puts Loos in the right neighbourhood. The only time I’ve seen it in Sweden so far was in Tännäs a few years ago, but today I got a tip on a location near Loos. Thanks to (or rather, because of) modern forestry, wolf lichen is all but disappeared in forested areas but it also grows on bogs and we’ve got plenty of those here. The colour of this poisonous lichen is very special, so it’s impossible to mix it up with any other lichen. Wolf lichen is no doubt my favourite lichen and now that I know that it grows around here, I’m looking forward to future encounters!