Hats

[Mike Buckley]

Captured at the Calgary Stampede Rodeo in 2003 on color slide film. Recently converted to monochrome. C&C encouraged, as always.

[Donald]

Another wonderfully creative image.

Can you remember the settings that you used to give you that amazing depth-of-field?

[Mike Buckley]

Glad you like it, Donald!

I really don't remember the settings. I do remember that it was a 28mm manual focus lens on a 35mm camera and that I used the smallest aperture that I could handhold while shooting probably ISO 100 film. I seem to remember taking various shots by focusing sometimes on the large hat on the left, sometimes focusing on the smaller hat on the right and even focusing in between the two. Notice that the large hat on the left is not perfectly in focus, which in this case I think adds depth to the image.

If I remember that lens correctly, the markings on the barrel didn't allow me to reliably determine the hyperfocal distance, as that would have been the ideal method to use. If the markings had allowed me to do that, I'm sure I would have used that method. The only thing that I remember with great certainty these days is to remember not to trust my memory.

I do remember that the person wearing the big hat on the left was in the row immediately in front of my row, so you're right that it's a fairly extensive depth of field. In fact, I have the image tagged to indicate that in my catalog.

[Maritimer1]

What a great sea of Stetsons. Black and white is a perfect choice for this photo as it's timeless.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Myra. I like the B&W version better than the color version. Despite that all the hats are the same color (cream white or light tan) in the color version, they pop more in the B&W version.

[allenlennon]

I love it, well composed subjects, love the B&W conversion.