35mm and Hot

It’s been super hot since mid-June, which is basically what summer is here. I find the heat very demotivating when it comes to getting out hiking and shooting photos, but I had had enough demotivation and late Monday afternoon I went for a hike at the wildlife refuge. And as usual, I found that the heat really wasn’t as bad as I had imagined it would be. By the time I got out to the wildlife refuge it was about 7:00PM, the temperature had dropped down to the mid-90s Fahrenheit, and the sun was getting lower in the sky and wasn’t so oppressive. Still, I was the only fool, er person at the wildlife refuge for a hike on this evening.

Trailhead for the Creek Trail at Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge (shot at 35mm)

I also decided that I needed to spark my creativity by focusing on a theme, and the theme I chose was 35mm focal length. Why 35mm focal length? I feel like 35mm gives a really good field of view for landscape photography, but I generally only shoot with zoom lenses which makes it too easy (or lazy) and I end up not thinking as carefully about the composition. Having a set focal length can focus your attention on the subject, your position, and framing; forcing you to concentrate more on the composition. Or so I theorized. Anyway, the only lens I have that will shoot at 35mm is a 24-200 f.4-6.3 zoom, so I set it to the 35mm mark on the lens barrel and decided that is the only way that I’d shoot it on this afternoon. As an added benefit, I left my long lens at home and that cut the weight of my backpack by a lot.

The refuge is dry, and perhaps not especially photogenic this time of year, but I hiked up the trail and climbed the ridge to get to the grassy trails up top. Along the way, I looked at the yellow grass thinking that it would be a really good simplifying medium for a photograph if only there was an interesting subject to place within it. I experimented with some juniper stumps that were getting their last sunlight of the day. It was something to shoot, but nothing too exciting. I continued hiking down the trail to that hill in the distance (see the photo below).

Tree Stump in Late Afternoon Light (shot at 35mm)

Not seeing much I headed back and when cresting the ridge to head back down to the parking area, I noticed some thistles catching the light of the setting sun. The thistles seem to glow when viewed looking directly toward the sun. I had seen this before with prickly pear needles and always found it very difficult to photograph as shooting directly into the sun can really degrade the contrast in a photo and my results are usually a bit washed out looking, but I had to try again.

The thistles and foreground grass were much darker than the sun in the sky, so I set up my tripod and prepared to take multiple bracketed shots of the scene to combine later. This means I would set my camera to take 5 shots at 5 different exposures (-3, -2, -1, 0, +1) in quick succession. The shots at -3 and -2 exposure capture the highlights in the sun and sky and the 0 and +1 capture the foreground grass.

The other difficulty was focusing on the thistle with the camera pointing directly at the sun, as the camera adjust for the bright sunlight and the thistles go dark. My solution to this was to hold my hand in front of the lens so that it blocked the sky, and the camera metered for the grass, which allowed me to set focus on the thistles. See the image below with my hand blocking the sky.

I took a few different series of photos. Shooting only at 35mm, made me really work on the tripod position as I couldn’t just turn the focus ring to get in close or move back. I decided that I liked the following composition best. The thistles are close enough to the camera that they are clearly the subject, but they are still visibly within their environment. The yellow grass simplifies the composition as I hoped it would. And the merge of bracketed photos allowed me to keep the color in the sky.

Thistles Backlit by the Setting Sun (shot at 35mm)

The final photo was by no means just import, merge HDR, and export. I worked on those thistles to try to give them the glow that I saw. The Lightroom masking tool is getting better with every update and allows for a lot of editing tricks. For the thistles, I just painted a circular brush mask on each one and then intersected that with a luminance mask and selected the highlights. I then bumped up the exposure and the temperature slider to make them glow. I also found the sun to be far too defined and sharp, so I put an elliptical radial filter on it and smeared it out by boosting the highlights and reducing contrast. I also made some lens flare go away.

None of the photos above were cropped in post and they all show the 35mm angle of view. I like this focal length and I think the 35mm exercise was worth while. I usually get tempted to shoot very wide to take in everything which usually distracts from the subject, or zoom way in to really fill the image with the subject to the detriment of context. But 35mm is kind of a good middle ground for landscapes and forces you to work on your composition a bit more.

I also wasn’t really bothered by the heat. I should get out more. Thanks for reading.

45 thoughts on “35mm and Hot”

      1. A 24mm can be useful to me shooting in old buildings, low light landscape etc. They are also one of the least expensive lens out there, so minimal investment. Now… a 50mm ‘nifty fifty’ is a paper weight. Conventional wisdom says you must have one, and yet every photographer I know has buried in their closet somewhere 😁.

        Zoom is the way we all go most of the time. 😂.

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        1. I have an older F-mount 50mm f/1.8 that I can use with an adapter, but I never do. I find 50mm to be too constraining unless shooting portraits (which I seldom do). I had a cheap old 35mm f/2.8 with lots of distortion at one time but I sold it. The nice Nikon Z-mount 35mm f/1.8 is like $700 and I can’t bring myself to spend that much money on it.

          Liked by 1 person

  2. Mid-90’s, eh? I hope you wore a sweater.

    I like the black sky photo of the thistles best, as it is so unique. I guess it’s not very realistic, but I like unusual photos. For realism, I think the bottom photo is best.

    Liked by 1 person

          1. We’ve been fighting a swarm of them in our house lately. Hundreds of their queens have been coming up from the foundation. We’ve been bugspraying them, and sweeping up piles of winged ant corpses. They probably think it’s the apocalypse.

            Liked by 2 people

  4. Between you and Tippy! I don’t even have AC in the house… it’s called “opening the windows” here.

    I like the thistle shot (the second one, not the one with your hand in it). Actually, I’m impressed that you were able to take that photo facing into the sun like that.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Yay on getting out and not melting. Glad it wasn’t too bad for you. Great shots of the thistles. I like the effect of the thistles against the black sky, but your last shot with the setting sun on them Is my favorite.

    Liked by 1 person

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