While in the prairie meadow the last couple of mornings, while waiting for the prairie birds to become active, I played around with some sunrise and early morning landscape shots by using my 500mm, f/4 telephoto lens. Not your common setup for this type of work, but I just love how this large lens compresses the various items in the frame.
This first image was taken as the sun was beginning to filter through the woods that borders this meadow: a lone sunflower bloom towers over the meadow:
This next image clearly illustrates the compression of the 500mm lens on the landscape, making the image look more like a painting. A very slow shutter speed and a dash of wind helped create a “magical” look to the surrounding sunflower stalks. This image was taken shortly after the sun had risen above the treeline and when it was casting it’s golden rays of light onto the sunflower patch:
