Timeout! Of playing fields and depth-of-field

[1/320 f/5.6 iso100 200mm]

We love a new park that has opened up nearby. It is one of the few areas in the concrete jungle where kids of all ages can run around or play ball. It encourages free play as against restricted play areas featuring slides and swings. This park allows you to just run around - sort of like when I was in high school when there seemed no shortage of space.

The other reason we love it is that it expanse allows me to use a longer lens like the Canon 70-200mm, which is probably one of the finest lenses ever made in its price range. It is absolutely stunning, is relatively light and inexpensive. It is a beauty.  Amazingly accurate color, sharpness and beautiful bokeh. This lens is a pleasure to shoot with. However, since it is relatively long, you need a lot of light and some distance from your subject  and using it indoors is difficult if not impossible. I am always finding excuses to use this lens. It is quite ridiculously good.

It also helps solve one of the more interesting challenges in photography: how do you take portraits with a narrowed down f-stop so that you avoid distortion but how do you still get a good shallow depth-of-field so you blur the background and even foreground for a more compelling image and specially when you cannot be too close to the subject. Well, a long lens would allow you to do that. See the shot above. I am quite far from the subject and I am fairly narrow at f/5.6 but still I have a fairly narrow depth of field because I am at 200mm. And yet, I am not narrow enough to blur parts of the subject.

Grab this or any other long lens next time you step out. It will change your life - or your photography anyway.

Week #287/300.