Spring and summer are green and colorful in southeastern Oklahoma where I live. You can frequently find me walking my dogs or cutting the grass, and many evenings in the middle of that, I will see things I want to photograph in the golden evening light.
I keep cameras just inside, for just this reason. I have a few favorite lenses for this look and that, since every lens in my kit does something best, and they don’t overlap all that much.
- A wide angle lens
This is my go-to glass for big views of the sky when it’s stormy or colorful or dangerous-looking.
Last week I took a minute to attempt a lightning photo. I put my 28mm f/2.8 on my Nikon D700 and aimed it at some of the most active area for lightning in the late-evening sky. Often I get very nice lightning images by stacking a dozen or more pictures as Photoshop layers, then blend them to show all the strikes over a longer period of time. But last week, I was only able to stay on the back deck for a short period before rain started to drench me, and I only made one 10-second exposure. At first I was disappointed with the shot, but when I brought it into Photoshop to edit, I found I had captured a remarkable amount of electrical activity in just that one frame.
Don’t forget, though, the first rule of lightning photography: don’t get struck by lightning.
- A portrait lens like an 85mm or 105mm
A short telephoto lens allows me to work relatively close to my subject, while getting nice background blur. Spring and summer in our part of the state can be really colorful, from Indian Paintbrush growing wild in the pasture to my peach trees, to tomatoes ripening in the garden.
If I had to pick a favorite lens, it would be the 85mm.
- A dedicated macro lens.
This class of lenses are usually in the 50mm to 200mm range, and can focus very close. These are great for small flowers, bugs, spider webs, or anything else that has fine, very small details.
- Some odd lens from my collection mounted on a mirrorless camera with an adaptor.
I have a bunch of old, orphaned lenses I’ve paid little for or been given over the years. I have three or four 50mm lenses, and a very interesting 58mm lens, all of which I can use on one of my mirrorless cameras with an adapter. I am particularly fond of using lenses like that at their maximum aperture (“wide open,” as we say in the biz.) That method sacrifices sharpness, but can yield some very dreamlike visuals.
So, what does your back yard or flower pot or vine-covered fence look like at sunrise or sunset?
