I do most of my photographs, by far, with “vintage” manual lenses in adapters. But occasionally it’s fun to use a more modern setup, and some modern lenses give decent bokeh, although rarely as spectacular as old Russian lenses can produce. Sunday I fit my EF 50mm f/1.8 STM lens to the Canon EOS 6D. Sometimes I wish there was an EF equivalent for the EF-S 24 STM lens at a similar price point, but currently my widest “modern” lens is this 50mm. It actually came with the camera when I bought it off of fleabay and it’s been a right handy lens to have. We’d had some rain and I took a few minutes to catch some images from the tiny flower garden in front of the church.
I really liked the contrast between the exhausted flowers and the fresher bloom all together. 11 years of coffee grounds dumped here have yielded a lovely soil for producing roses. A closer look revealed a guest sheltering in the bloom…
As mentioned above, this lens wide open gives some fairly decent background blur, or bokeh as it is often termed in photographic circles. And our little guest was caught nicely, along with raindrops festooning the rose bloom.
Behind the rose was a young sunflower plant, just starting to flower. I’m looking forward to a chance to catch it wide open on Sunday, the Good Lord willing.
This lens wide open gives a VERY narrow depth of field. And the tiny screen on the 6D makes it hard to see if one has managed to catch the shot one wanted. The fruit blurred out, leaving the leaves nicely sharp. Not the look I was looking for – but interesting in its own way!
We have a couple other rose varieties thriving in the rich coffee ground fueled soil. This one is just starting to produce blooms, not as prolifically as the red one, but lovely as well.
Across the street they have this “double” hibiscus. It keeps on flowering all the time, pretty much. I don’t know what their soil is like, but this bush really is doing well.
I’ve no idea what the name of this plant is, but the EF 50mm managed to catch the delicate details nicely, while also giving a nice, blurry, “paint splotch” bokeh.
These “elephant ears” really catch the rain nicely. This shot reminds me of the old “Peanuts” Snoopy novel writing first line… “It was a dark and stormy night.”