This was taken at North Chagrin Reservation. There was an area right in the parking lot full of bluets so I spent about an hour shooting different angles.  This is my favorite.  Proof you don’t have to go far to find a photograph.

A lot of people write about “zooming with your feet” and tell you to go out an buy prime lenses.  Instead of doing this I thought I’d explain my experience using prime lenses.  The major advantage I get with using prime lenses is visualization.  I know that at a certain distance from a subject it is a certain size.  From experience I know how the frame will drop around that subject when I bring the viewfinder up to my eye.  This makes for a much more fluid process of making images.  There isn’t any fiddling around with the zoom ring to try to include or exclude portions of the image to frame it like you saw it.  So when I see the image its very easy to adjust the exposure and capture the frame.  I didn’t have to look around the viewfinder to look for things sneaking in on an edge or for some funny merger ruining the image.  I’ve captured what I saw and can bring that back the viewer.

My other thought is that it feels much more natural to shoot with a prime lens.  Which makes sense because our eyes are fixed focal length.  As we move around the world we change our perspective on an object.  Shouldn’t we do the same when we are photographing?

Here’s a little activity just to see how you’re really using your zoom lenses.  Go through your images and see what focal lengths you are actually using.  This may surpise you, it was a surpise to me.  Even though I have an infinite number of choices along the zoom range of a lens most of my shots were taken at either the widest setting or the most telephoto setting.  How is this for you?

Winter has definitely arrived here in NE Ohio.  But I thought I’d post a shot I took back in October.  It was taken the day of the annual wood duck festival. There were quite a few other photographers there that day and luckily the ducks didn’t disappoint.  I was able catch this guy shaking the water off his wings.  I used LR2 to bring the water down about 1/3 of a stop this makes the duck stand out more and makes color in the water look more saturated.  Click the image above for a desktop sized image.

I got a new camera this week and had a chance to go out and do some shooting with it yesterday. The camera I got is a Sigma DP1 it is a point and shoot sized camera with a DSLR sized sensor and an excellent lens. One advantage of having a DSLR sized sensor is that fact that you have control over depth of field. On all other P&S cams the sensor is so small that even with an f/2.8 lens you can’t get a shallow DOF. The DP1 isn’t for everyone though, I’m still getting use to the fixed 28mm equivalent lens. I’m use to the telephoto lenses I use for shooting wildlife. With the wide angle you have to get pretty close to small things to make them a reasonable size in the frame. I’ve posted a few more shots on Flickr so you can check them out. I’m looking forward to shooting a lot more with this camera and seeing what it can do. Hit up the link below for a wallpaper sized image.

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Well it is dark gloomy day here in NE Ohio so I’m going to post a picture from last spring in hopes that it makes spring come faster. This was shot from the boardwalk in the North Chagrin Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks. I was laying on the boardwalk watching as the woodduck ducklings made their way across the pond. They as so light that they barely sink the lily pads.

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