An Autumn Walk

 

Autumn is already gone by now and everything is brown or gray. But I did a nice walk two weeks ago when the forest was in full colors and the ground covered with fresh fallen leaves. That is the kind of photography I like. Being there, observing, exploring, and taking good pictures of what I saw. It's in-between a casual approach with snapshots and a pro approach who would create only photos after carefully selecting the location and time.

The equipment was light with a single lens on the camera, the 24-70 f/4. There is no need to isolate subjects, so a fast prime is not strictly necessary. The quality of that kit lens is on a very high level. I do not think that one of the excellent Z primes would have helped.

For this kind of photography, I like to remain in manual mode. The Nikon Z5 II has a very good IBIS. Even though the lens has no VR, I could handle shutter speeds that allowed to remain at low ISO values. I'd take ISO1600 when needed. But the details are no longer that crisp if you pixel-peep. By the way, ISO600 should be avoided. Due to the sensor design, ISO500 looks just like ISO800. 

Those pictures of small objects work at 70mm. The lens can do about 3:1 macros. But getting that close to subjects yields a very shallow depth of field. Something like the image above requires a bit more.

The pictures on this page are edited. I do not believe in out-of-camera results. Often, the results is just better with a bit of vignetting, color adjustments, cropping, and occasionally removal of annoying details.

Have fun!