People have been sharing some amazing flowers of late.
Flowers need to start from somehwere. How about some Begonia tubers just starting to shoot?
This is a tender perennial that most people throw away at the end of the summer.
They are sensitive to cold and rot easily. The reward is spectacular when they do flower.
These large tubers, hidden under the soil, are about 40 years old. I took them off my father's hands a few years ago. He didn't want to let them go but he wasn't in a position to care for them. So, I have been under pressure to keep them alive over winter. So far so good. He'd be mortified if they didn't survive.
They are starting a bit late this season because I had overwintered them in the garage and they got lost amongst some other stuff.
Great to see wild flowers in context with the landscape in the background. Really lovely.
Colin
graytrekker wrote:
There is a somewhat famous qute here in the US - well actually, its the same quote - one attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak out and remove all doubt", and the other to Mark Twain: "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt". Maybe Mark twain was plagiarizing Lincoln - easier to do in the days before the internet. Be that as it may, I will venture to post a flower shot in the presence of masters.
yesterday evening it cleared up and my daughter and I headed to a hill overlooking Flathead Lake. The arrowleaf balsamroot was in full bloom. Just before golden hour a big dark cloud covered the sun. We haven't had the best of luck with sunsets here for for time. I had the 55 f2.8 micro that I was shooting wide open. I haven't done most of this - using it either as a true macro lens or a landscape lens. I couldn't focus stack due to the wind - so it is what it is. Thanks for your indulgence!
PS - I took the same image with my Sony A7RIII + Voigtlander 50mm f2 Apo Lanthar and thought that lens gave better DOF at the same f-stop (obviously I can't post in this forum). That doesn't mean I love the Nikons any less. Maybe that 5mm makes a difference? Maybe the breeze was a bit stronger on the Nikon??
Keeping my shutter finger itchy and trying to click my way through the Covid-19!...Show more →
DeltaSigma wrote:
People have been sharing some amazing flowers of late.
Flowers need to start from somehwere. How about some Begonia tubers just starting to shoot?
This is a tender perennial that most people throw away at the end of the summer.
They are sensitive to cold and rot easily. The reward is spectacular when they do flower.
These large tubers, hidden under the soil, are about 40 years old. I took them off my father's hands a few years ago. He didn't want to let them go but he wasn't in a position to care for them. So, I have been under pressure to keep them alive over winter. So far so good. He'd be mortified if they didn't survive.
They are starting a bit late this season because I had overwintered them in the garage and they got lost amongst some other stuff.
Phong, wonderful flower pics. This last one (some form of lotus?) is outstanding.
Colin, enjoy your pictures, but also want to applaud the narrative that goes along with them.
Doug no apologies needed for the arrowleaf balsamroot shot. Like previously mentioned by Colin, I prefer to take flower shots in a setting like that vs just a portrait. I shoot flower portraits simply because there's not much setting around here that excites me.
Only Rafael would shoot a flower portrait with a 500mm. And if I'm reading it correctly, a 500mm mirror tele? Well done!
All these flower shots have stirred some MFNAS in me, had me pondering a 105 micro for a good balance of working distance and magnification. I'm thinking the 105 f2.8 micros, any particular version recommendations?
gbohannon wrote:
Ok Scott, you have my curiosity. Where/what is that?
It is the remains of a full-rigged wooden ship built in Maine in 1890, the St Mary. It collided with another ship while trying to round Cape Horn, staying afloat long enough to wreck in the Falkland Islands. Some of the remains were salvaged in 1978 and brought back to Maine to be put on display in the Maine State Museum. It is a very impressive example of shipbuilding from that era.
pbraymond wrote:
Phong, wonderful flower pics. This last one (some form of lotus?) is outstanding.
Yes, it is lotus.
Another lotus photo with airy effect. I am not why it occurs. Maybe from lower ISO than base ISO100 on D800e and wide open in harsh light. _D8E9946in by blurrist lump, on Flickr
Ken Hill wrote:
Serge my daughters office is in Greenwich not far from there on Steamboat. It’s a beautiful town that time seems to have forgotten yet has something for everyone. Thanks for the pics.
Ken, your daughter is a lucky young lady. Greenwich is a terrific historical town and lots of fun when things get back to normal. I bet her commute from Steamboat is total breeze.
I would have liked to have taken some photos at the yacht club but the ladies wanted to hang around the town. There are usually some great boats there.
Took this one from Tarrytown on the way back from CT. The new Tappan Zee Bridge was completed in 2017 and has a length of a tad over 3 miles. Down the Hudson is the Manhattan skyline.
The light was harsh and need to get back there around sunset time.
Phong, love all of your lotus photos but the single lotus on the last page is gorgeous. You really nailed that shot. I've always been a fan of the 300 f/4.5 for flower photos. Well done.
Doug, you did well with your flower photo against the backdrop of Flathead Lake. That name stirred memories for me. When I graduated from high school eons ago, I was hired to work as an entertainer at Glacier Park. There are four hotels in and around the park and they hired forty college age kids to perform, ten at each hotel. I was assigned to Glacier Park Lodge. It was an amazing experience for a suburban kid who was still 17 years old. (It snowed the day I arrived in early June.) Flathead Lake came up because the older students working at the many jobs at the hotels often spoke about trips to the Lake and the late night debauchery in which I never engaged. The "gear jammers" who drove buses between the lakes were the real lotharios. The entertainers were a bit of a separate breed since we spent the days in rehearsal and the evening performing either at the cocktail lounge or the small theater in the hotel.
It was an eventful summer that I won't go into but definitely reading the name of that Lake stirred all those distant memories. What a wonderful place to take photos Doug. Thanks for sharing your work with all of us.
serge07 wrote:
Ken, your daughter is a lucky young lady. Greenwich is a terrific historical town and lots of fun when things get back to normal. I bet her commute from Steamboat is total breeze.
I would have liked to have taken some photos at the yacht club but the ladies wanted to hang around the town. There are usually some great boats there.
Took this one from Tarrytown on the way back from CT. The new Tappan Zee Bridge was completed in 2017 and has a length of a tad over 3 miles. Down the Hudson is the Manhattan skyline.
Yes she’s happy and lives just outside of Greenwich and doesn’t have a bad commute. I travelled the TZB Daily in 1981 for a couple of years. I transferred out on June 27,1983. The day BEFORE the Mianus Bridge on 95 collapsed. Talk about luck. My commute time each way would have tripled.
Nice posts and the Marina is (or at least was) a great place to hang out.
