Photographic Fun

Blurring backgrounds and stopping the light

Shallow depth of field

Santa was really good to me this Christmas, admittedly I did drop quite a few hints, so I'm pleased that the elves must have been listening!  My usual photography bag contains a Canon EOS 550D camera, a bit long in the tooth but working well, together with a good all rounder Canon 18-135mm  zoom lens, plus my Panasonic Lumix LX100 and an iPhone6s.  In most circumstances these allow me to make the images I like, however I have been hankering after the ability to get some shallow depth of field images with nice blurry backgrounds and smoothing out water ripples on lakes and waterfalls. 

Just over a year ago I was speaking with a photographer at a book launch event who persuaded me that a 'nifty fifty' 50mm prime lens would be an essential piece of kit to allow great portraits and shallow depth of field.  He, very generously, let me borrow his lens to try it out and I must admit I was very taken with the results, so much so that the idea of adding to my kit bag started to take root.  

Shallow depth of field

I also attended a landscape photography course in the Lake District a few years ago and was introduced to Neutral Density filters (ND) that allow a longer exposure to be taken for results such as the smoothing of flowing water into a creamy surface, again I thought I'd like to try this out.

Imagine my joy at finding a number of wonderful presents under the Christmas tree that will, no doubt, give me lots of photographic fun for years to come.  I am now the proud owner of a Canon EF 50mm f1.8 lens, the f1.8 means this is capable of opening the aperture wide so I can get the shallow depth of field and blurry background I desire.  There was also a Hoya neutral density ND16 filter to reduce the light entering the image by 4 times, so I can expose for 4 x the usual time, this came with an adaptor to allow this filter to be used on both my zoom lens and the new nifty fifty. Another great little addition is a spirit level that slides into the hotshoe on my camera (where the flash would fit) so I can level up my landscapes! (wonky landscapes don't look good and mine often are wonky...).  The world is now my oyster!

Here are some of my first images using the new kit.  None of these have been edited in Lightroom yet just fresh off the memory card.  I know I will improve but I'm really pleased with the first results.

Creating silhouettes with a neutral density filter

Canon EF 50mm f1.8

Canon EF 50mm f1.8

Smoothing water on this canal photograph using the ND16 and a 3 second exposure

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