Getting Down In The Grass With Your Camera
You can find all kinds of delights down in the grass.
First thing in the morning you’ll find the grass covered in dew.
It’s glistening in the early morning light and inviting you get out into the garden with your camera. I don’t know about you, but it’s an invitation I can’t ignore.
The best set-up for achieving quality grass shots consists of two main elements:
- A camera with a flippy screen. This is so you can tilt your screen up and see what you’re shooting, which in most cases is preferable to lying on your stomach in the wet grass. If you don’t have a flippy screen then you could, of course, just leave it to chance and shoot blindly, picking the best shots afterward.
- A manual focus lens with a wide aperture. If you’ve been reading my articles in recent times you won’t be surprised to see me recommending the Pentacon 50mm f/1.8. Just stop it down to f/2 and you’ll be shooting sharp images of blades of grass with lovely big bokeh balls of dew in no time.
Seriously, for around £30 or less, the Pentacon 50mm is an absolute bargain. Cheap, but incredible. I reckon every photographer should own one.
Alternatives to dew
Dew is not the only thing that makes for an attractive grass shot.
Frost works well too.
A long lens and a large aperture
As you might know, I recently acquired a Panasonic Leica 15mm f/1.7 (here’s the first article featuring this amazing lens — A Luscious Leica Lens In London). This sits very comfortably on my Olympus E-P1.
It has a large aperture, and it does focus closely, but it’s nothing on the Pentacon 50mm when it comes to grass shots.
I tried it recently, and it wasn’t happening.
You really need to get as much background separation as you can, so in terms of focal length, the longer the better.
I’d love to try these shots with a 135mm lens.
I’ll leave you with a couple more grass shots.
I’d love to see you have a go at this if you’ve not already done so. I’m sure you’ll be able to achieve some fantastic images.
