It was Thanksgiving morning. The expected clouds might be good for a sunrise. All I had to do was wake myself up at about 5:30AM and go out to the wildlife refuge with my camera. No problem, I can usually wake myself up at about this time by force of will. At 6:30AM on our national day of gluttony, my eyes opened on a new day; so much for all that. But looking at the clouds I could tell they were too thick for a nice sunrise anyway, so no big deal. But, I did get dressed an go out to the wildlife refuge anyway.
As I arrived, I could see that the clouds would be stubborn and I would be lucky to get any real light to shoot with. But, I have never regretted going for a hike yet, so I grabbed my camera and headed to the trails. My thoughts were that I would try to take five decent photos, but didn’t have high hopes for anything amazing. To make my life more difficult, I decided to shoot exclusively with a 35mm prime lens.
A prime lens is a lens that only has one focal length, as opposed to a zoom lens that can change focal lengths over a range and give you a lot more flexibility. So, why would anyone shoot with a prime lens? Well, at a given focal length, a prime lens generally offers much better optical quality, compactness, and a brighter aperture. And as an added bonus, you can be snooty about using a prime. I only have one prime, it is at my favorite focal length (35mm), and I like shooting with it. I also have a 24-200mm zoom lens that includes 35mm in its range but it is not nearly as good a lens. My 35mm prime will do an aperture of f/1.8, which is substantially brighter than the f/4.8 my zoom will do at 35mm. That being said, I mainly shoot around f/8, so…
I went for my hike on my usual route. The refuge staff has done a lot of work repairing the lower trails after last summer’s flooding so that was nice, but those areas do still look a bit torn up. But the back half of the refuge, up on the plateau and beyond don’t look any worse for the events and that is where most of my photos were taken.
Below are my five photos that I picked out. You can see how stubborn the cloud cover was being. They are all shot at 35mm and none of them are cropped. I did get down to f/2.8 on the mushroom photo to blur the background a bit, so I guess the prime lens is worth it.
None of the photos are bangers, but I still never regret going hiking and shooting photos. And on this holiday hike I did contemplate what I was thankful for. Hope you have a nice Thanksgiving. Thanks for reading.
Jason Frels 
Those really are nice, high quality photos, in my opinion. There’s something to be said for a prime lens. I like the mushroom photo the best.
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It’s because you’re such a fun guy.
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I make as mushroom as possible in my life, for fun.
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As long as that doesn’t lead to too much truffle.
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I stay out of truffle, as a man of high morel standing.
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🙄
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There can never be too many truffles, and now I want some.
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I may have groaned but will give you credit for that pun since making room for fun is an important thing to do to stay sane. I can understand why you need to make as much room as possible!
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Gee, thanks for your understanding, Nurse Ratched.
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You are most welcome 😛
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Groaning!
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The mushroom shot is excellent. Both the color and the wider aperture worked very well to give it an immediate environment while separating it from the background.
I also just like the photo. (ツ)b
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I took several shots at different apertures. I liked f2.8 the best. Thanks
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Wait a minute. You had plenty of “real ight”, maybe just not the quality or brightness of the light you would have liked. And I like the 35mm perspective. I use it a lot when just walking around in urban or country landscapes. And count your blessings, Jason, this morning I shoveled snow. And it did two more times throughout the day, and it’s still snowing. So will have more to do tomorrow morning. And looking outside again, one would never know the walks have been cleaned already. Enjoy the weekend.
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I don’t have to shovel any snow, so that is nice
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You never regretted a hike, and I never regret looking at your photos. Even when you say they aren’t “bangers” . I like the moodiness of the dark clouds in the first shot, and then my favorite is the second shot, where it looks like two golden paths. Good job with all of them.
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The grass gets long and golden this time of year. Thanks
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I too like the mushrooms, the colour contrast with the out of focus background is great. I think that I’d categorise that as “banger” 🙂
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