Koi Garden: Photography in the Koi Garden

When I started the Koi Garden blog, I wanted to cover both the intricacies of a Koi Garden and also the art and fun of photographing the Koi Garden. The format of a blog allows, no requires, many photos, but other than that we have not really done huge amounts of discussion about photos.

Well, because I got a great holiday present, I will spend this blog focusing (oh, that was good… read on…) on some photography in the Koi Garden. I received an used 55mm f2.8 Nikon Micro manual focus lens. But don’t worry; this was no garage sale special. This lens was originally made in the mid 80s. Yes, mid 1980s, as in big hair 80s. Since that time, the lens world has been taken over by the auto focus, lighter weight, multi purpose zooms. But try as they might, in my view, the new lenses cannot hold a candle to the great old ones (hmmmm, mixed metaphors?). And the great thing about Nikon cameras is that the great old lenses work on the new cameras almost like the new ones. Ok, what is up with that? Can you imagine a present day Porsche allowing you to pull out the engine and plop in a 1985 engine? I thought not!!! But I digress… The point is in the case of old Nikon manual focus lens, they just don’t make them like they used to.

The nice thing about this lens is the clarity. It is very clear wide open at f2.8 or f 32.0. That’s right f32.0. That means the depth of field (DOF) for this lens is huge. Things that are normally out of focus can be made in focus with this lens. See the Heather photo where I take a photo at f2.8. This results in the smallest DOF possible. There is only one part of the Heather plant that is in focus. The rest of the Heather is blurry; very blurry. Of course, in the photo world, out of focus can be good. They even have words to qualify the quantity of out of focusness.... Bokeh...

The DOF also allows me to keep the entire series of leaves and buds in focus. This is an Akebia (silver Akebia, if you must ask) that has popped due to a few days of good weather. Oh and by the way these leaves are lots less than a inch in length. That is some magnification!