Sales of stock photos online recently funded the purchase of something I’ve been eyeing off for quite some time: an ultra wide-angle lense. In the mail on Monday I received a new 10-22mm Canon EF-S lense and had a chance to give it a bit of a whirl on the way home today. I’ve ready a little about having to be careful with lenses this wide, the tendency of people to use them to "get everything in" and thus shooting photos with a great deal of empty space in them. The second I aimed it at the Golden Gate Bridge from one of my usual spots I got the idea… The lense is just so wide that it made Golden Gate puny from a spot where it would usually fill my other lense at 18mm. I had to walk over a mile so I was standing literally on the edge of the water underneath the bridge to make the span fill the lense (the photo on the left above). It provides amazing depth of field, a lot of fun to use, you can really get it up close and personal to objects in the frame.
Every day on my way home I pass a dairy that’s spread across the 101 freeway in-between Petaluma and Novato and marvel at the fantastic old gnarled California oaks in the dairy’s pastures. Today the traffic was light so I drove into the dairy and asked the rancher if he’d mind me cruising through his property to take some photos; he was nice enough to oblige. Some great trees on the property, I had a bit of a laugh trying to get back to my truck at one point as it’d become surrounded by cows who were about the most inquisitive bunch of heifers I’ve ever come across (the last photo)!
Let your passion grow, enjoy the new toy!