last days of winter in the garden

Last week I took the macro lens out into the garden for the first time in a while.  Spring is certainly upon us.

macro photography – tibouchina flower

When I was growing up, these plants were more commonly known as Lasiandra. A Lasiandra by any other name (now Tibouchina) still shows off its delicate whiskers on its claw-like stamens.

macro photography – portulaca grandiflora

There seems to be a wet flowers theme developing. The garden ponds brought by heavy rain have drained away and the wind is doing its best to dry out the place, despite occasional showers.

Here’s the pick of this afternoon’s photographic expedition into the garden. I had to go scrambling for the garden text books to identify this plant, Portulaca Grandiflora.

macro photography – still raining

It’s still raining. There are signs that this system will move away from us soon. In the meantime, the rain play continues with continued lessons from the macro lens and the joys of accidental success and images that surprise.

macro photography – tiny flower in big rain

The rain is descending in proverbial bucket loads today as a result of a cyclone hundreds of kilometres north of Brisbane. We can expect the rain to continue falling for at least another couple of days as we watch the impacts of this latest storm come to light.

Up until today, I’ve not ventured out into the rain with the camera. It’s still dark outside despite the fact that it’s mid-morning. Here are the results with no flash and a shutter speed of 1/1250.

charcoal drawing – fuschia

At it again, using photographs as the basis for getting dusty. I went a bit further today, deciding to add a touch of pastel colour, just to see what happened.

macro photography – more flowers

I’m calling these my ‘ethereal’ series. There’s still so much for me to learn about pulling all the right factors together to get the spot right for focus. With a few of these, I was using the flash under dark skies as a storm was building.

macro photography – orchid

Little orchid flowers are popping up everywhere after all the rain we’ve had this week.

after the rain

It’s Saturday morning. In between the very welcome showers of rain, I’ve taken the camera into the garden. Still getting hit and miss results with where the focus lands. I’m enjoying the surprises though.

 

cactus flower

The cactus flowers are showing off in their albeit too brief beauty this week, and I’m still attempting to work some magic with the macro lens/adapter set up. A few ants got into the act again today.

testing the Sony A6000 – light sensitivity and ISO

I’ve been testing the new Sony A6000 particularly as it relates to ISO noise. The light sensitivity of these cameras is very impressive, particularly when you think back to using 35mm film, when 400 ISO could give you grainy results in low light. These Clivia photographs were taken mid-afternoon in the shade of a large tree.

ISO 640 123mm  f5.6  1/200 sec

ISO 1250  170mm  f6.3  1/320 sec

ISO 2500  200mm  f6.3  1/400 sec

 

fuschia haiku

 

mission: exposure

to attract a passing bee

petal skirt unwraps