Fern

[Bob Decker]

I'd planned on a little birding excursion Sunday, but my brother-in-law talked me into visiting a Buddhist temple with him instead. While there were certainly some nice hand of man photo ops, not much nature wise... at least until I took a walk around the grounds. I snapped this fern using a Canon 85mm 1.8, wide open, on a 40D. 1/250, iso 640.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Bob - very narrow DOF with the 1.8 - for my tastes I find the OOF part of the leaf in the foreground a little distracting - the bright green spots in the BG also draw my attention. The part of the leaf that is in focus doesnt have enough DOF to hold my interest.
Keep experimenting :)

[Alfred Forns]

I like the idea Bob !! Do agree with Lance on the couple of areas. For limited field work is usually best to have the front element in focus !!

For this composition I like how you got the leaf angled toward the corner and did come up with a pleasing bg !!!

[Bob Decker]

The 85 1.8 wouldn't be my usual choice for this kind of thing... but I was there to shoot the shrines and architecture, so I took a shot at making do. If anyone's curious you can view some of my "hand of man" shots from the trip at http://rddeckerphotography.com/blog.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Interesting, like Al said usually have small pieces in the corner and leading edge in focus. As an abstract it is cool, but keep playing, smaller aperture number would have helped and BG is busy.

Trying to think, when would you use the 1.8, its a low light situation,..how would you get any focal distance. Can you play with the infinity settings?

ISO 640 on a 40D is pushing it IMO, I have one and 600 is max, but that's me.

Is there a Buddhist temple In NC? Anyway, keep em coming friend, the theme of buddhism is suffering, what did you expect (smile).

[Bob Decker]

The 85 1.8 us a very popular wedding/portraint lens. It's often cited for rivaling the 85 1.4L. Given a bit of distance there's enough DOF wide open to keep a person's face, or at least a pleasing percentage of it in focus. Stopped down a bit it's a pleasing perspective for portriature. Since I didn't have my 100 macro with me and I saw a shot that looked interesting, I gave it a try.

I was actually very surprised when I learned of the temple. It was an interesting trip. I'd like to go back when they're doing a festival... would be quite photographic with prayer flags flying.

BTW, I spent the last hour of sunlight last evening sitting at the rookery, waiting on Egrets. They came in late... as in too late to even try a shot. :( (How's that for a theme of suffering?) ;)