Tale of Leaf and Lens

[tbutler]

Another example of the difference a lens can make in photos...



This is a pair of leaves, shot with the Tele-Vivitar 135mm lens I've mentioned a couple of times before. I had trouble before when trying to get things sharply in focus, and the same thing was true here. OTOH, the long focal length meant the leaves were very well separated from the background, and the 15 aperture blades gave the out-of-focus areas a nice creamy look.*



This is a shot of the same leaves, taken with an Olympus OM-Zuiko 50mm Macro lens. The 'macro' part means it was designed to focus at very short distances with little distortion, allowing you to get up close and take sharp pictures of the subject. And you can see that it's more in focus - look at the drops at the tip of the leaf on the left. However, because it's a much shorter focal length, you don't get the same separation between the leaves and the background, and the picture looks busier.

Which one do you prefer?

Comments

[affreca]

I like the first. I think it is the distance lets me focus on the leaves.

[yhlee]

Yes, I'm with you--the second picture has more distractions in the background.

[tbutler]

*nod* Yeah, that's pretty much my thought as well. I do appreciate that the leaves are sharper in the second pic - but the first pic gives them room to stand out.

The main thing I wanted to show is the difference two lenses can make in the same scene. :)

[yhlee]

I can pretty much only notice things like that when there's a side by side comparison, so this was very instructive! (I am not visually acute for reasons you can guess.) I really appreciate your photography posts--they're beautiful and educational. :)