Red and Orange Aspen Leaves. Bishop Creek, California. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Intensely colorful red and orange autumn aspen leaves in the eastern Sierra Nevada.
Late in the day on this rainy eastern Sierra fall day I headed for a small dirt side road that I know of in the Bishop Creek drainage. Along this road are a few special aspen groves that I have photographed in the past, including one with very slender trees and sometimes fiery colors. This time I was there a bit earlier than in the past and, ironically, the leaves on these trees were so thick that they didn’t lend themselves to the photograph I had in mind. I did make a few photograph of these trees – one of which will likely appear here before long – but then I decided to try something other than what originally brought me to this spot.
I put the 135mm f/2 lens on the camera – perhaps not a typical landscape lens, but quite nice for shooting close images of leaves and creating soft background blur – and went hunting for small groups of leaves with appropriate backgrounds. Because it was late in the day and in an area where the sun drops behind ridges fairly early and overcast and raining intermittently, the light was really interesting. While this light can mute some colors, it also fills in the shadows a bit and can intensify the colors of bright subjects like the aspen leaves.
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Dan:
Thanks for your perspective on “correct lenses for landscape photography”. I agree with you completely. I too (as you know) often carry the full range from 17-400mm for landscape photography, and on occasion, when I’ve not carried a lighter telephoto with me, I have even resorted to using a 300mm f/2.8 to shoot close-ups of flowers with beautiful bokeh. Sometimes it is the telephoto focal length that permits me to isolate my foreground close-up subject from distracting background elements. The one lens in my kit that has given me extra options is my 24mm tilt-shift, which sometimes provides the needed focus even at wide apertures, and lets me capture images of vertical trees without the distortion caused by tilting the camera/sensor.
This is a terrific discussion. Thanks!