Richard & Caroline's Blog

So what else have we been up to on our week off.  Well we fitted some trips out and one of them was to Whisby Nature Reserve as previously mentioned.

The highlights of the day was definitely the Grebe family, but there was plenty of other action to see.  The Black Headed Gulls were breeding on a number of the islands and occasional glimpses of the chicks could be seen with our spotting scope and long lens equipped SLR.

 

One of the surprises was this Oystercatcher, I saw my first many years ago on the Isle of Skye but since they I have gotten a lot more interested in birdwatching and have spotted the odd one in Lincolnshire.

We had a family of Mute Swans who did not seemed too bothered by the dive-bombing seagulls when they got a bit close the the gull chicks hiding on the islands.

 

One thing we never have a shortage of in Lincolnshire is as well as the gulls is the Canada Goose and many of there young were visible.

 

A pair of Tufted Duck’s were also to be seen, only one pair and I could not spot any young.

But the highlight of the day was definitely the Grebe family.  The male worked very hard catching fish and bringing them back to the young and the female, only taking the odd fish for himself.

Altogether a great days photography.

I have a couple of days free in the first two weeks of June so if your a model and want to work with me please drop me an email and we can see if we can work something out.

TFP/TFCD at home or a local studio.  Looking forward to hearing from you, check out contact page on my other website to get hold of me.

This months picture of the month is from another set I took around Lincoln Cathedral.  There were four images which I though were good candidates; two where very much like previous Photo of the Month’s so I dismissed those which left me with these two.

The top shot was taken at f/8 while the bottom at f/4.  I was after bringing the attention to the flowers so defocusing the background but still giving the view the chance to see what the background was.

 

 

Most people are aware changing the format; eg MicroFourThirds, 35mm full frame, 5 x 4 large format etc, changes the field of view. So a 25mm lens on a MicroFourThirds camera has the same field as a 50mm on 35mm and approximately 150mm on 5 x 4.

What fewer people realise is the impact on aperture and ISO.

Recently Chris posted a video that covered this area quite well.

One thing I never see mentioned is the impact on perspective.

So does the rule about field of view also apply to perspective?

People are advised when shooting a head and shoulders portrait to use a focal length of 85mm (35mm full frame), as this gives a pleasing perspective. It flattens perspective giving a more pleasing look to the face.

But what if you are a MicroFourThirds user. Does a 40mm lens give a similar perspective affect as that of a 85mm on full frame?

Well, we know the field of view is close to the same so let’s try a thought experiment.

Stand about 10 metres from someone and stare at their face; now do the same at 1 metre and finally 0.1 metre.  The closer you get the more the perspective changes and their nose gets bigger and bigger, its the same as if you use a wide angle lens and shoot them from a distance with a very high resolution camera, zoom right in and the perspective is quite flattened.  Walk close and take the same picture and the features become more pronounced.

They say the 85mm lens makes the nicest portraits on 35mm and that is because it forces you to stand far enough away to make the perspective pleasing.

The perspective is a result of the camera to subject distance and not the lens.