I want to know when Utah’s legislators are going to start censoring all the flower genitalia we have flapping in the wind? Flowers are the “private parts” and used for reproduction – and as you know we can’t have that out in the public. Here is a macro photography of the pollen and pollination of flowers. I am loving my Canon 100mm macro.
Pollen & Flowers
I have a new lens! As if I don’t have enough lenses…
The new lens is the Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro IS lens. I had rented this lens several months ago from borrowlenses.com and was somewhat impressed and just from today’s test shots I am more impressed. It is sharp and it has great color and I love the image stabilization (IS). At lunch I photographed some flowers, Star Wars action figures, and iPhone 4 retina display.
This lens could be considered a specialty lens – specifically for macro photographs – but this lens can also be an excellent portrait lens. And since I have been using a full frame sensor – ever lens feels like a wide screen photograph. So it is nice to have a macro lens where I can get close to a subject and get some sharp and amazing detail. Yay!
I am sure I will keep this lens on my camera for several days. And it is an L series lens – which means it comes with a lens hood! Granted almost every Nikon lens comes with a lens hood.
Macro Flower Photography
Macro Flower Photography
iPhone 4 Macro Photograph
Star Wars Action Figure in Macro Photography
I love my new iPhone 4 – the camera is so much better than the camera that was included with the iPhone 3G. This is a macro photo I took of some flowers outside of work. The photo looks amazing on the iPhone 4′s retina display.
I will be trying out the iPhone 4 camera a lot – it is 5 megapixel and I am glad that Apple isn’t trying to stuff megapixels onto a smaller and smaller chip. More megapixels does not mean the camera is taking better photos. In many cases all you do is add more noise to a photo.
Flower
After yesterday’s snow fall I thought photographing some flowers during lunch would be a perfect way to remind me that it is supposed to be spring right now. Photographing flowers with a macro lens rocks – I try to get the blurry and ethereal look to my flower photos. Really shallow depth of field and the flowers begin to look painterly.
White flowers
Ethereal flower
Wow, I escaped the cubical at lunch! I am shocked! I usually eat lunch at my cube and check the internet to make sure things are going smoothly in the world. Today I grabbed my Canon 5DII and the rented 100mm macro lens to go practice.
Practice makes perfect and I have a LOT of practicing to do. (But my mom still loves me, allegedly). And what better thing to practice some macro photography than some flower photography around the downtown Provo area. The Courthouse had a number of flowers ready for their cameo.
Pink flowers with a macro lens
Macro photography gives you very little room for error. The depth of field can be quite narrow and I wasn’t using a tripod cause I want to try out the IS (Image Stabilization). And it doesn’t keep the wind from getting in the way, however, so you have to be a bit patient and try a number of shots.
Red flower bud in macro
And I thought it would be fun to photograph a dandelion, they could be a very beautiful flower – so I put a number of their seed in a neighbor’s lawn to see what it looks like. (Dear neighbor, you deserved it.)
Dandelion, underrated flower
And this is a crop of the photograph from above. This is why 21 megapixels is a good thing – a lot of room to crop so you can see all this detail.
Let's look at the dandelion a big closer
With such a confusing spring (snow, rain, warm, snow, rain, warm) I haven’t found any daffodils to photograph and when I did find some today – they were already dying. Oh well, next spring maybe.
And I like that these daffodils were right next to some pine tree bush thingys. I know, how scientific is my naming convention?
These were shot with my 50mm which doesn’t do macro at all – it is great for details but not great for getting really close. So I am going to rent a macro lens and see if I like it on Canon. Might tip me over to switch.
Daffodils and pine trees
Yes, I know, more spring flowers – but since winter is slowly loosening its death grip on Utah I am going to celebrate and take some photos gosh darn it all to heck!
I did have a portrait shoot today – but I will blog some of those photos tomorrow.
Spring Blossom
Our sense of smell is often over looked. The only time we use it is when we smell something really bad or really good. We don’t walk into a room and smell first and ask questions later but if there is a gas leak or maybe fresh baked goods then we are all sorts of aware of the smells.
For for the last few days I had been smelling something weird in the house. It was a mix of something plastic and foul smelling. And it wasn’t till today that I realized it was these white flowers. So I grabbed my camera and took a few photographs – first getting a good macro shot of one flower. I thought I was done till I walked around the flowers and thought the second photograph had to be created.
Stinky white flower in macro
Stinky white flowers