I may have made a slight contribution to the "blossoming" of flower photos on the thread, but honestly, I believe Mother Nature is the real inspiration now that Spring is here and flowers are in abundance, at least in most areas. I visited the Marin Art and Garden Center this afternoon fully expecting there would be a plethora of roses in bloom. I landed in the middle of a wedding ceremony scheduled for the day. Fortunately, the service was over and the guests were rambling around with drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Fortunately they pretty much ignored the rose garden enclosed by a high fence intended to keep marauding deer from feasting on the tender petals so I had my fun. I'll restrain myself and only share a few photos... despite the fact I got a great selection of first rate shots. I eventually gave up trying to use the focusing ring on the 180 f/2.8 AI-s and simply looked through the viewfinder and shot what appeared to be sharp. At f/11 it worked like a charm... a much more relaxing way to play with tubes. I think in addition to playing with the 300 f/4.5 AI-s ED-IF, I'll also pull out the 80-200 f/4.5 AI which I recall is a killer lens for shooting with tubes. The combination of turning and sliding the focusing/zoom ring works like a charm.
Here goes... 180 f/2.8 AI-s, 20mm Vivitar extension tube, f/11, 1/160th of a second in Manual mode.
And I couldn't resist grabbing this shot... all the cars have inspired me. Boy do I wish I had access to the cars Rafael shares with us. Gorgeous. I even saw a Sunbeam Alpine in the background of one of those shots. I had a beautiful white Alpine that was a joy to drive, except in the winter with the rag top and small block made it very difficult to keep warm in Minnesota... I prefer California.
As spring moves towards summer up your way, the days have got considerably shorter down here and we've already had a couple of fires - not that it ever gets really cold, but nobody ever has double glazing or decent insulation put in when houses are built.
By coincidence I finally bought a decent set of tubes, Kenko, which arrived on Friday. The sky was heavily overcast yesterday and I took a couple of shots with the D200, 13mm tube and the 80-200 f4. This one of a wilting succulent flower was the best of a bad lot. Stacked.
My son at his traditional Indonesian wedding in Surabaya. As I was part of wedding there was not much space for me to take pictures.
My wife took the honneurs and shoot pictures with the Z6 + 24-70/4S in Auto mode. She made some really nice pictures.
This was me with the Z6 + 105//2.5 PC
Some people we met, as with a lot of people in India, they asked if they could get selfies with us, we had fun and the first guy swapped my sunglasses for his turban !
Colour and B&W versions, what do you prefer?
cadman342001 wrote:
Some people we met, as with a lot of people in India, they asked if they could get selfies with us, we had fun and the first guy swapped my sunglasses for his turban !
Colour and B&W versions, what do you prefer?
Chris Dees wrote:
My son at his traditional Indonesian wedding in Surabaya. As I was part of wedding there was not much space for me to take pictures.
My wife took the honneurs and shoot pictures with the Z6 + 24-70/4S in Auto mode. She made some really nice pictures.
This was me with the Z6 + 105//2.5 PC
Chris,
Baie geluk vir jou seun en sy nuwe bruid. Ek het nie genoeg Hollands om dit te skryf nie. Sy is 'n "schitterend meisje".
Peter
Translation from Afrikaans -
Lots of luck for your son and his new bride. I don't have enough Dutch to write in Dutch. She is a gorgeous girl.
She made some really nice pictures. 
