They have such a cool look

Today, I decided that I was gonna bring my camera with my Sigma 70-200mm lens on my walk. There were a bunch of sparrows out flying along the canal and I thought it would be cool to try and get some photos of them, but they were so fast and small, that I didn't really get any good ones.

But there was so much life along the walk that I still had something to take photos of. I have never really spent much time shooting flowers with my telephoto lens, so it was an interesting challenge to use it for all of these photos. I am getting a lot more comfortable using it for these types of shots though.

The biggest difference with using this lens is that I have to back up quite a bit from my subject for it to focus. This is the complete opposite of my 100mm macro lens. With my macro lens, I can get super close and the lens will focus.

The minimum focus distance on this lens is 1.2 meters. So I basically have to be almost 4 feet away from whatever I am taking a picture of before it will be able to focus on it. It's not a big deal 99% of the time because this lens is mainly for making things far away seem closer.

So to take pictures of flowers and stuff, you really need to space yourself right. It sucks to not be able to get super close and get a bunch of details, but the thing I like most about this lens is how it compresses the background and the bokeh is super nice when you shoot at 200mm.

The lighting was really cool outside. We have been having a bunch of rain along with a cold front. The cloud coverage really makes for some nice lighting. It makes the flowers seem like they are glowing.

I really like the colors in this photo, along with the many different depths of field for focus.

This shot was pretty fun. I had to stand on my tip toes to be tall enough to get the flower in focus. I love how the bright colors stand out against the dark greens and shadows.

If you look closely, you can see a bug staring back at you. It was just soakin up the sun on the flower petals.

I hope that you enjoyed the photos. It was fun using my long lens for these types of shots. It is always an adventure when you stick a lens on the camera for the entire day and force yourself to use that lens for everything.