I felt that I needed to try something different with my fall photography this year. My first experiment this year is with a fisheye lens. For a long time, I have thought about purchasing the Nikon 8-15mm zoom fisheye lens, but it is expensive and I could never convince myself that I would use such a lens enough to justify the expense. Consequently, I began to look at alternative fisheye lenses. One photographer reviewing such lenses gave a nod to the older Nikon 16mm prime fisheye. I found a good used one of these for less than $300 – a price I was willing to pay.
This blog series will show some of my results shooting fall photos with the Nikon 16mm fisheye, which is a small lens. It felt strange walking around with a big DSLR and a tiny lens, since I was accustomed to shooting with much larger lenses like the massive Nikon 14-24mm, the Nikon 24-70mm and sometimes the Nikon 80-400mm.
It might be small, but this lens has a really wide 180 degree view. It is so wide that one has to be careful not to get a tripod leg or a foot or some other unwanted object in a shot. To avoid the tripod issue, I shot completely handheld. Occasionally, I did get a foot or part of a leg in shots without realizing it until I viewed the images on a large monitor. The super wide angle causes some problems with compositions, too.
I made no attempt to apply lens corrections, since it was the fisheye distortion that I wanted. (I did experiment with lens corrections to see what would happen. Sometimes the corrections resulted in “normal” looking images. Sometimes the corrections resulted in some correction, but introducing other distortions).
I’ve been concerned that my traditional fall images are becoming monotonous. This year I decided to experiment with new (to me) photographic techniques. Yet, concerned that my venture into a new realm might fail, I still made sure that I captured plenty of “standard” fall images. So before I reveal the results of my photographic experimentation, I’ll share plenty of the old standby type fall images.
Sedona, Arizona is in a picturesque setting with massive, colorful rock formations all around. It is also a popular tourist city with all the trappings of such a city, many shops, restaurants and art galleries.
In the outlying areas there are many popular hiking trails, scenic destinations and places popular with rock climbers.
My wife and I drove around the local area around the city to check out the scenery. I made mental notes about possible places to return to at sunrise or sunset to engage in my photography hobby.
My first chosen destination, Bell Rock, for a sunset shoot is just off of a major road and is a popular tourist draw. As I left our motel in Sedona, an afternoon thunderstorm erupted with lots of lightening and heavy rain. The local rock features that are visible from the city streets were surrounded by clouds with intermittent breaks in the clouds allowing sunlight to illuminate those features for a short while. There would have been great photographic opportunities during the storm, if only there had been a place to safely pull over out of the heavy late day traffic and not be exposed to the heavy rain and possible lightening. I could only observe and admire the views, wishing I were able to photograph the storm.
I hoped that there would still be some of the storm around when I arrived at the Bell Rock parking area, but the storm had moved on into the far distance by the time that I arrived. The nearby sky was mostly clear, but the distant storm clouds were still visible.
There are a number of hiking trails around and near Bell Rock. Most tourists opt to hike up the slope towards Bell Rock. I decided to hike the less popular trail that went around behind Bell Rock towards other rock features nearby. I only recall encountering two or three others on this trail. The parking lot was not nearly as full, this late in the day, as it had been during my scouting pass through it earlier in the day.
As these first two images reveal, the distant clouds caused the light to constantly vary from entire shade to partial shade and the sky to vary from dark to light.
I made numerous, not so interesting, photographs of the distant rock outcrops as the late day light changed. While the distant storm clouds added interest, it was not until I noted a faint rainbow appear that I began to hope for something more interesting. Indeed, as I watched the scene that rainbow became brighter and a double rainbow appeared, seemingly terminating on the rocks with a golden glow from the late day sunlight.
As I prepared to photograph this old, majestic tree skeleton (old trees like this are one of my favorite subjects), the clouds in the sky began to glow with the golden color of sunset light. The golden cloud was perfectly positioned above the tree, as if forming a crown of honor and remembrance for the old tree.
As I walked the trail back towards the parking lot, after my late day shoot, I had to stop to capture these colorful, post sunset clouds with the silhouette of rock formations in the foreground.
When I turned to look back at this rock feature, I noted that the color was a deeper red just after sunset. In researching this area, I had seen information that said these rocks looked best for photography just after sunset sunset. My observation confirms that statement.
As is my habit, I use my iPhone camera to make images while scouting photo locations and/or sometimes to record in route travel scenes. This Post and others to follow will feature some of the many such photos made during my March trip to California. Some of the photos in these post may be similar to those shot later with my DSLR.
I know there are many people that only use their cell phone cameras for photography, simply because it is convenient and nearly everyone always has a cell phone with a built in camera with them at all times. The cameras in the newer model cell phones are quite good, although there are still limitations. Nonetheless, it is possible to get good photographs with these convenient devices. There are also camera apps that may improve a phone camera’s ability to shoot better images and there are plenty of in phone edit apps to enhance the photos.
Sharing photos taken via a mobile phone is also very easy. It is no mystery why these small, pocketable devices have become so popular with those that just want to shoot a quick photo and share it to social media or via text message or via email.
A snow storm came across the western U.S. at the start of my trip, threatening to delay travel for a day at least; but as it turned out, we only had slow travel over the Rockies through the area that received significant snowfall, after I-70 was opened just before our scheduled road travel.
I awoke at about 3AM my first night in Colorado and peeked out my bedroom window to check the weather and this winter scene filled my view. So naturally, I grabbed my phone and captured a few images through the window.
It is easy to see in these two images how light sensitive the camera sensors in these phones can be. Of course, there was some light from street and house lights and the heavy cloud cover reflected the city light onto the snow, which bounced the light, too. The detail in these 3AM low light photos is still remarkable.
The passenger in a moving vehicle might be able to shoot while moving along at highway speeds with one of these devices. (The driver should pay attention to driving and not use the camera while moving).
This image was made somewhere in Utah, the morning of our second travel day, as the storm seemed to be clearing; although, we continued to see storm warnings along the highway and we had driven through some snow flurries the day before in some higher elevations.
This is the second part of my post on abstract images of fall trees via ICM (intentional camera movement).
Fall Trees Abstract, Indiana, November 2, 2023Fall Trees Abstract, Indiana, November 2, 2023
These two images (above and below) are the same but with different editing applied. These are not realistic natural images, so I’m not bothered by artistic renditions via edits.
Fall Trees Abstract, Indiana, November 2, 2023Fall Trees Abstract, Indiana, November 2, 2023
The same scene can yield very different results, depending upon the camera movement.
Autumn Abstract 2, Indiana, November 2, 2023Autumn Woods Abstract 5, Indiana, November 2, 2023Autumn Woods Abstract 6, Indiana, November 2, 2023
I must admit that I had fun creating these abstracts. Maybe I should do this more often and I like the vertical motion abstracts of trees much more than those created via horizontal camera movement.
