The Quiet Picture

One thing I’m always very careful to point out is that photography is a hobby for me and that I don’t have any intentions of making it a profitable such. So I don’t market my pictures and a few years ago when I had a photo exhibition, I decided that it’s just not worth the trouble either. A hobby is a good hobby only as long as it’s fun, and the exhibition felt like too much work. So it’s a bit surprising that I’ve volunteered myself to go through it again and now it’s a more high profile exhibition than the last one which took place in our small library here in Loos.

When I agreed to do the exhibition, I didn’t even have a clear idea of what kind of pictures I wanted to put up. Now I’ve had a few weeks to think about it and I’ve decided to go for the pictures which are closest to my heart – the quiet ones. The name of the exhibition is “Den tysta bilden” i.e. The Quiet Picture. The exhibition will take place at the Rosehills garden market in Ljusdal so it was natural that I gravitated towards flowery motifs. I still haven’t selected exactly which pictures I will show and I even have time to take some new ones, now that I know exactly what style I need. The strange thing is, I’m always talking about keeping my pictures simple but when it really comes down to it, I don’t have a lot of pictures that qualify. I’m talking about extreme simplicity, where the picture comes down to just one or two elements, but without making it completely abstract. The picture I’m posting here is too abstract to qualify, but it’s a good example of the simplicity I’m referring to. One colour and the subject fills the frame.

In order to advertise the exhibition, I’ve created a Facebook page which features more of these quiet pictures. Not as simple as the exhibit pictures will be, but I want to concentrate on this theme now and will make a serious effort to think before I shoot when I get down with the flowers this summer. It will be a challenge… experience tells me that it’s surprisingly difficult to find subjects which are completely free of distractions so I have my work cut out for me!

The exhibition will open on 30 July and run until 11 August. If you’re in or around Ljusdal during that time, welcome!

I’ve had another day to play with the Canon 100mm f2.8L IS macro, but the pictures are few and far apart – not sure why but I’m just not coming across any subjects I like. The picture of the very pale heath spotted orchid is getting close to the closest focusing distance of the lens, but it’s nothing that my 150mm macro couldn’t have done. The wood cranesbill though, it would’ve been tricky to pull off with the long macro. I was shooting straight down on it and there wasn’t a lot of light in the forest, so the shutter speed was 1/80 at f2.8 (ISO 100). In order to get the flowers the same size in the frame I would’ve had to stand up straight, go to a higher ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed so I could hope to get something sharp. I’m not sure if it would’ve been possible to set up the tripod in such a way that I could angle down the camera, while still being able to see through the viewfinder!

So that’s definitely one for the shorter IS lens, I think that this is the best wood cranesbill picture I have. Just because the flower grows everywhere doesn’t mean that I have lots of pictures of it!

But no, I’m still not even considering of trading the long macro for this shorter IS macro. Maybe it’s not possible to take exactly the same pictures with these lenses, but who needs that anyway? If it’s not possible to take some particular picture, then you just come up with another one and don’t dwell over the might-have-beens. You work with what you’ve got!

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!