Category Archives: Rokinon

California State Capitol

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I’m just getting settled back in from a trip to Sacramento, California, where I attended a board meeting of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). In between rain showers and meetings, I did manage to get out and shoot a little. This shot came from a short afternoon outing where I just walked the few blocks around my hotel, limiting myself to just my 85mm Rokinon lens. It was threatening rain, I wanted to travel light, and I sometimes enjoy that limitation of one focal length to force myself to see a bit differently.

But for this shot, I really needed a wide angle. The capitol grounds are filled with trees so there was no “zooming with my feet” for this one. If I stepped back further, my view became obstructed. Instead, I shot a grid of about eight or nine images and stitched them all together later in Photoshop. A nice side benefit is that it resulted in a really large file, should anyone ever want to order a reeeeeeeally large print.

More shallow depth of field

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Here are a few more shots taken in Arkansas with my 85mm 1.4. Having a manual focus lens again has been interesting. I used to love manual focus and only grudgingly adopted autofocus when I upgraded film bodies years ago to get other features. I’m enjoying a return to that slower, more thoughtful way of shooting but I am finding that changes in my own eyesight and in camera viewfinders have added some additional challenge. Not to mention that at f/1.4 you get very little wiggle room. That plane of focus can be wafer thin.

The big viewfinder on my D700 is pretty manual-focus friendly but I do miss my old split-view finders. I’ve looked at options online for getting a replacement focusing screen, but I’ve seen enough comments from people who have experienced exposure issues that I’m not sure it’s worth it to me. Instead, I think I’ll just continue to practice, practice, practice. I also think I’ll try and rely more on my eye and less on the focus-confirmation dot in the viewfinder that tells you when you’re sharp. I’m not so sure that it isn’t “drifting” a bit depending on my subject distance. It must be the camera – it couldn’t be me, right?

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Above: I happened on this beautiful lakeside wedding location, just after the ceremony had finished. Below: a few shots of people hunting for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park.

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Simplifying the frame: Clinton birthplace home NHS

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On a recent visit to the President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site in Hope, Arkansas, I decided to take a different approach to my photography. It’s easy to develop habits and a common one is to see “interior” and immediately think “wide angle.” After all, I carry that wide angle for just that reason — if I’m in a tight space, I can still get it all in the frame — right?

Here’s a typical shot from starting with that mindset:

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But the more I thought about it in this case, the more I realized that the architecture isn’t the point. The real spirit of the place was in the details: the childhood photos, the everyday items, the memories. After I had all of the wide shots I needed, I popped on my new Rokinon 85mm 1.4 and took a fresh look at things. The image at the top of the post and the three that follow were all made with the 85mm.

That short telephoto view changed how I saw things. It forced me to simplify. What was a chaotic mixture of patterns through the 17mm was now reduced and dreamy — thanks to the shallow depth of field. The images felt more like I felt, when touring the house. I’ve toured a lot of presidential museums and boyhood homes but this one was more personal for me, probably due to the fact that it resembled my own boyhood home so much. It was very nostalgic for me and I think that came through in the images. I’ll definitely not disregard a short telephoto when shooting interiors from now on.

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Testing a new lens

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Gear is a funny thing. You can become obsessed with it — always wanting the newest, the fastest, the most megapixels — but it’s a trap. At least I feel that it can be a distraction from paying attention to the things that really matter: composition, mood, light, message.

I don’t buy new gear all that often and I try and really think through and make purchases that will last. I’ve had a solid stable of bodies and lenses for a while now and have the whole range of focal lengths covered from 17mm to over 400mm (if you consider the 1.5x of my crop-sensor D7000).

So what more could I want or need?

I’ve thought about this a lot lately and have decided that what I’m looking for now are not necessarily the tools that test out as having the “best quality,” but rather tools that have a “unique quality.” It’s a fine distinction, but what I’m looking for are a few lenses, in particular, that have a uniqueness about them. They deliver something special. They may not be the most expensive, rugged or sharpest, but they will bring a capability to my kit that I didn’t have before.

My most recent addition arrived on Saturday: a Rokinon 85mm f/1.4. I took it out for a quick walk around the KU campus yesterday to see what it could do. I was drawn to this lens for the shallow depth of field and creamy bokeh (out of focus areas). It’s manual focus as well, which slows me down and makes me more thoughtful. So far, I’m not disappointed. See what you think of these initial test shots:

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The Jayhawk shot above is actually stitched from 18 images in a pano-grid method I’ve written about before. It lends the shallow depth of field to a wider angle of view.

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These last two shots are of mounts on display in the Natural History Museum — they’re not wildlife shots. I was just looking for some tighter settings to try the close focus and shallow depth of field:

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So far, I’m impressed and happy with my purchase — and anxious to get this lens out in the field for some real travel work.