Yesterday a trip to the local botanical garden yielded a treasure trove of autumn color.
Tag: botanical garden
The Beauty of Color
The natural world is endlessly variable and surprising in what it brings to our eyes. In photography, much can be done to manipulate color, contrast, detail, and so on; this imparts mood and emotion vial tonality, shading, nuance. Playing with post-processing software is time-consuming (because it becomes so fascinating at times) and can lead to fun and interesting results. A palette of presets in software can be a blessing, or a curse.
Below are some pictures I took yesterday at the local botanical garden. Some trees were alight with color, others were wonderfully subtle when backlit by the setting sun.
The first group is the same image, processed four ways. I used Photomatix Pro, LR 5.7, and VSCO presets for LR.
These next images were of the colored leaves. Here in SoCal, colored leaves don’t exist in abundance! The leaves of native plants tend to be somewhat pale and small. Many are fragrant from resin, which makes for terrifying fires. The local botanical garden has brought in plants from different parts of the world, some of which put on a beautiful display in the fall. Lucky me to catch them!
At times I wish I lived someplace else. I miss the hardwood woods that change color in the fall and the rush of excitement when bulbs peep out through the snow. I don’t miss the snow, though – having lived near Buffalo, NY, I remember those winters, as I do the damp, miserable cold of Chicago in the winter. While SoCal is sometimes too monochrome, the beauty is there, too, if you look for it.
A Look at the Nikon Df – Images
In reading reviews of the Nikon Df, there is a lot of controversy about the camera. Personally, I don’t care, because what any camera does is take pictures. And the quality of the picture will be dependent, in part, on the camera, and, of course, on the photographer.
I like this camera very much. I like the images, I like the way it fits in my hands so easily, and I like the dials and knobs and levers. The LCD on the back of the screen is bright and clear. There are other little things I like too, but first, I want to look at some of the images.
I went to the local botanical garden here where I live. The pictures below were taken with old lenses from the 70s, AI compatible. I also used a Tokina 11-16 DX, but that is for a later entry to IY&B.
First of all, the picture above is my breakfast this morning – yogurt, strawberries, and pecans. This was shot at iso 4000. Certainly a good reason to use this camera at night! If you click on it, you can see it full-size – you may need to do it twice to see it at 100%.
The next few pictures are done using my Elicar 55mm macro lens. This is a lens that is about 40-50 years old and completely manual for focusing. There are complaints that, as a retro styled camera, a split-screen focusing screen should have been included. Maybe. However, I found that the focusing dot and the screen in the viewfinder both work very well together. This bee was shot, handheld, at iso 64 – one of the lower end iso settings – at 1/200 s. Not sure about the f/stop. Click it, too, to see it full size.
Another one from the Elicar macro lens. Here, iso is also 64; some contrast enhancement done 1/160 sec.
I like this one a lot. Again, the Elicar 55mm macro, iso 100, 1/100 sec. Enlarge it, and look for the ant on the flower in the right side of the picture. Pretty sharp!
This last picture is a panorama of about 8 pictures stitched together. Iso was 50; time varied. All hand-held. Exposure time was about 1/100. This worked quite well with a Vivitar 24mm prime lens from the 70s. I think the f/stop was most likely 6.3 or 8.
On a Winter Day
Today it rained, was cold and windy, and I went out to the local botanical garden. I brought a 70-300mm lens to practice landscape photography with, but flowers ended up the best ones of the day.
On a Winter Day
The past few weekends have made me feel so cramped and crazy, mostly because the puppies are growing, and needing a lot of attention. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I was nuts to get two, but when they are all cute and cuddly, the answer is always a loud “Yes!” Luckily, the other half is superlative at caring for them, but he abandoned me for the Super Bowl. As the puppies are crate trained, I made good my escape for a couple of hours to the local botanical garden.
Where I live, endless blue skies are endlessly blue and cloudless. We are in the middle of a drought. The state does not plan to release reservoirs, and I don’t blame them. Weather is weird, extremes showing up which seem abnormal. Global warming? I think so, but this is not a political / ecological foray, so we will leave it at that. Back to the skies: we had rain clouds! And some light rain! I went out to shoot landscapes with a long lens, 70-300mm, but could not produce any I liked – I expect my view-point was wrong.
Instead, tripod in hand, I also focused on flowers. Always, flowers. Leaves, rocks, trees, branches. I love the shapes of nature, and ultimately these seem to be the ones I love the most. Long lenses are great for blurring the background, and with flowers it is no exception. On this trip, I took my time, crawled around, and looked through the camera to frame my shot. At times, I used live view because I was down so low (luckily, no mud), and my battery was draining faster than normal.
Small patches of bright color are always welcome on a dreary day. The smell of sage and earth and decaying leaves are wonderful. I took my time to enjoy the garden, and even though it started to rain – and my camera gear was sadly unprotected – it was such a pleasure to be outdoors (sans puppies pulling on a leash) to enjoy the beauties of nature.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 