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Clay Pots
21 June 2021
Nothing at all is growing in these pots at the moment. But the morning sun caught them at just the right angle. They seem to be an attentive audience if only in the cheap seats.
Clay Pots. Nikon D200 with 50mm f1.4 Nikkor at f2.8, 1/1250 second and ISO 200. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw.
The cheap seats in this case aren't wooden benches in the outfield. They're a pile of concrete slaps broken out of what became our brick patio long before we bought the place.
We piled them up in the far corner under a tree and arrayed some potted begonias and fuschias on them to disguise them a bit. Then the ivy took over. Then we took over the ivy. And now we have empty pots and raw concrete.
We happened to be shooting with our Nikon D200 and our 50mm f1.4 Nikkor one morning when we noticed the sunlight playing on the pots. We crouched down and lined up the shot.
There are two issues with using a fast 50mm on an APS-C dSLR like the Nikon D200.
The first is, of course, that 50mm crops like a 75mm, which didn't bother us here. It just saved us a few steps. On a Micro Four Thirds camera this 50mm lens crops like a 100mm lens, saving us even more. That's just what happens when you use it on sensors smaller than full frame 35mm.
The second is less widely known, although we've discussed it sufficiently here before. It's that focusing a f1.4 aperture manually is difficult through a dSLR's optical viewfinder. You just can't see very well. So it's best to use Live View.
We could see well enough at f2.8 through the optical viewfinder, though.
But we'd prefer to see something growing in those pots. Maybe we'll plant the D200 and see if a Z 6 II comes up. Although we'd hate to try planting the 50mm. We've had it since Jimmy Carter was president and we're finally getting the hang of it.