So for anyone out there who is wondering what fall foliage in New England looks like to a colorblind person, and to keep people from telling me I just haven”t seen the right fall colors to appreciate them, I took a backpacking trip in the Adirondacks last fall and took some photos. The first photo is what my camera captured, no adjustments. Beautiful I”m sure, but to me I can just tell that there are some red and orange trees, nothing special. In fact, I recall the scene looking more like the second photo. I actually had to stop and think “gee, there”s a tree with red leaves over there. I bet color-sighted people would think that”s pretty”. The third photo is my approximation of what the scene would have to look like in order for me to think “wow, that”s a bright red tree”. But even after the adjustments, I don”t think I”d call the color “amazing”. I”d like to assert that the third image represents the color adjustment required to make the world look to me like what the rest of you see naturally . . . but if I”m being honest I can only guess at what that looks like.

So you can see why fall colors just don”t impress me much. And this probably explains why I really crank up the saturation on some of my photos . . . I”m just trying to make it look like I think it should. I suppose you”ll just have to believe me that my photos capture the way the world really looks. But even if you don”t believe me, that”s my prerogative and task as a photographer – to show you the world the way I see it.

The macro lens does work as a standard 100mm lens quite well, with no additional considerations. Personally I find the 100mm focal length to be a bit awkward for framing, but that”s just me. The only real difference is in closeup shots – I could stick my face a foot away from my subject and still have the 100mm magnification power, but because there is very little incident light when you get this close to a subject the f/stop is usually at its minimum . . . resulting in a miniscule focal depth.

To illustrate, here”s a friendly little salamander I found on the trail. Both shots were taken with the macro, though you can clearly tell that the side view shot had little need for a deep focal plane. The head-on shot was not modified at all – the amount of blur you see is due strictly to the depth (or lack thereof) of the focal plane.

Both of the above images were taken in full daylight with no flash. Ok, well it was filtered daylight since it was foggy, but this was definitely not in the shade. I love the detail in this little guy”s face (though he wasn”t too sure about having my giant camera lens 6″ away from his nose), but I think the excessive amount of blurring along his body really damages this shot. Out of focus would have been fine, but that”s downright blurry. Oh well, live and learn.

I was pretty beat this week after the tournament on Saturday, then coming back to play a local broomball game with no subs on Sunday. A couple crisises at work with a major experimental operation kicking off in Germany this week didn’t help matters either.  And today was District Science fair at UC, which I judge every year. Not that judging a science fair is stressful, but it basically shoots a weekend day for me.  I can’t believe I’ve been judging science fairs for 13 years now, almost half of my life!

I know I owe you some photos with my new macro lens, but it’s got a bit more of a learning curve to it than I anticipated . . . nothing I’m happy with yet. But I’ve got a backpacking trip planned to Shennandoah in 2 weeks, so I should have some good stuff coming back from that Will be my first trip with the new camera as well (plus the extra lens, I hope I can carry all my gear )