The days are getting just long enough so I can catch some sunsets again on my way home.

Red Sox – They keep finding ways to lose. They’ve dropped two in a row to the lowly Twins. Just bad.

Gas Prices – I can’t see any reason other than greed for a 70 cent per gallon spike in a week.

Drought – It’s already too late for the corn, but the soybeans are reaching the point of no return now. If we don’t get rain soon, they’ll be lost as well. The ditch in the second picture should be half full of water.

The corn stalks are quite high, but I heard on the radio this morning that this year’s yield is going to suffer because of the drought we’ve been having. We’ve received very little rain since late spring. The corn has a few ears, but they may be fewer and smaller than normal.

It certainly is this year. This is not “my” cornfield, but it’s representative of the growth here this year. I had to stand on my toes and hold the camera way over my head to get this shot.

In photography there is a term Depth of Field (DOF). It refers to the area of sharp focus in an image. Shooting with wide apertures, like f2.0, will yield a very narrow DOF. In extreme cases a portrait of a person may have the eyes in focus but the person’s ears and hair may be be out of focus. The narrower the aperture, the wider the DOF. Shooting at an aperture of f8 or higher will usually leave most, if not all of the image in focus. In the demo below, the aperture settings can be seen in the lower right corner of the image. Watch how the DOF is very narrow at f2 and widens until everything from the nearest cornstalks to the farthest trees are in focus at f22.

The corn is getting near perfect weather for growing. Loads of sunshine and occasional rain. Here’s a rabbit’s eye view.

I stopped by to see how the corn was progressing. It’s coming up nicely, although you can see a few areas where the heavy rain collected and stifled some growth.

While I was there shooting pics Jeff showed up with his new toy. This amazing looking machine is used to spray the crops. Here he was getting ready to spray herbicide to kill weeds and unwanted plants.

This week I traded 35mm lenses with a super-talented photographer and filmmaker named Mark Linsangan. I sent Mark my Canon 35mm f2 auto-focus lens and he sent me his Rokinon 35mm f1.4 manual focus lens. I hope he is as happy with his new lens as I am with mine. You can check out some of Mark’s photos here and his videos here. Thanks, Mark!

UPDATE: He’s taking great shots with it already.

I had some fun today with the lens. This shot was in a field of mustard (I believe) that was so yellow in the bright sun that it was blinding.

And an early rising moon.

I also stopped by my project cornfield. More on that later. But here’s a rat’s eye view of the corn also shot with the Roki 35. It’s beginning to look like a corn stalk.

My cornfield project is progressing. The corn has just started coming up.

This is a *really* big field. This panorama shows how wide and deep this field is. I need to check with Jeff (the farmer) to see how many acres it is.