Fall: my favorite time of year!

These leaves were actually at my son's soccer game, and reminded me that I needed to get out in the woods soon!

Due to the drought and heavy rains this fall, I knew it was going to be a quick fall this year. Sure enough the leaves turned quickly and fell of their branches in a matter of days. In mid October, I spent a quiet morning out at Homer Lake which is just a few miles from my house. It is a beautiful park with hiking trails through the woods and along the lake and Salt Fork river.

I brought along my digital SLR and a few old manual focus lenses from my film days. I enjoy shooting with manual focus glass, it is a slower and more methodical way of shooting allowing more time for composition and framing. These are all fixed focal primes as well, so the zooming is done with your feet, rather than a ring on the lens.


 The three lenses I took with are all AI Nikkors:  a 28mm f2.8, a 85mm  f2 and one of my all time favorites, my 50mm f 1.4.

The 50mm 1.4 is an especially wonderful lens. When it is shot at it's maximum aperture, there is virtually no depth of field. Everything floats away into creamy bokeh almost like an impressionist painting. It is a hard lens to shoot wide open because of the razor thin depth of field. When you get it right, however, it makes for fantastic images.

Check out how much light comes though the 50mm 1.4 wide open! The dings on the filter ring show the "love" I have had for this lens over the years. 

My 50 and 85mm lenses are pretty versatile. They can be used on just about any Nikon SLR (film or digital) built from 1959 to the present. This is because of the little prong that is mounted to the top of the aperture ring. The aperture ring is also machined to couple with Nikon cameras built after 1977. I think it is pretty cool that even with auto focus and chipped modern lenses, Nikon has kept the same bayonet mount on their lenses since the beginning of SLR production 53 years ago!

You can see the prong on the 50mm 1.4 screwed on near the 5.6 aperture. It allows to the lens to couple with older bodies that have external light meters built in the prism, rather than the camera. The notch in the aperture ring behind the prong couples to cameras with light meters built into the camera body.

This maple leaf was taken with the 50mm 1.4 Nikkor. It isn't wide open, probably f2 or 2.8.

This group of leaves were in a gove of trees, all filtering their golden light though the canopy. Shot with the 50mm Nikkor.

I really liked the way the fall trees and blue skies were reflecting in the Salt Fork River. I shot this with the 85mm f2, panning with the leaves as they floated by while using a slow shutter speed to capture the motion of the water.

I have always been a detail shooter, and enjoy the little bits and parts of my surroundings rather than the broader vistas. I also absolutely love shallow depth of field in images. I enjoy isolating the subject from the background, and playing with shapes and colors as background elements.

If you enjoy the woods as much as I do and would like to have your very own photograph from that lovely fall day, these three prints currently for sale :

Each 5x7 photo has been matted in white 8x10 frames. A perfect way to remember this beautiful fall day :)

Stop by my Etsy Store for more details. Enter the coupon code of "FALLPHOTO" and receive 10% off your order!