Yesterday it finally warmed up here in Southeast Michigan, and I was excited to get out for the first time this spring. It was fun getting out in the woods, but have to admit, there is not much to shoot that's all that exciting.
I was also looking forward to shooting with my new mirrorless camera, Fuji XT30 Markll, and Tamron 18-300 lens.
Only thing to shoot is dead stuff, as nothing is spouting up out of the ground yet, but I have shot some cool dead stuff in the past. It will be about a month before I start finding new plant life worth shooting.
As I was heading to a wooded area, I found some old milkweed pods in an open field that was left from last Fall. There was a stem with two pods attached to it and thought it might be something interesting to shoot.
When I got to the woods, I found a pine tree and thought why not use the nice artistic pattern of the trunk as a background behind the seedpods.
I wedged the stem into the loose bark of the trunk and set up my tripod and camera and started shooting.
As I always teach, never just shoot just one f/stop, shoot multiple f/stops, so you have options when you get home. From the different f/stops I shot; I went with the f/16.
Post processed with Smart Photo Editor.
After I was done with the seedpods, I search the ground for some pinecones to shoot. I found a nice little comp with three cones surrounded by pine needles. Not a great image, but at least I'm getting some practice with the new mirrorless system.
I was surprised to find one little bush with some newly emerging tiny leaves. Because the background was pretty cluttered behind the branch, I pulled out one of my backgrounds. In Smart Photo Editor I found a creative filter to add a little interest in the background.
I wasn't finding anything else to shoot, so I packed up and headed back to my van. On the way back I did come across a dead Queen Anne Lace that was attached be a little thread to a stem. Dead stuff has no color and pretty bland, so I tried helping it out by adding an artistic filter to dress up the image.
It was so nice getting out in the woods on a nice warm spring day.
So far, I'm very happy with the new Fuji mirrorless camera and Tamron 18-300 lens. Very sharp images come in out of the camera.