Last day of the holidays

Today has been a pretty relaxing day. We are back at work tomorrow and our visitors are returning to Auckland.  Life returns to normal, whatever normal is. We broke out the marco lenses today and some more dandelion seeds. I was determined to master the art of getting the reflection in the water drop no matter how tiny it was and I believe I did!

Macro has never really been my thing so I have had no real idea of how to achieve what I wanted to do other than reading about it on the internet. Unfortunately I am not one that learns that well from reading - I have to do it to learn. I am happy to make mistakes along the way but unless I physically give it a try it will never happen.

I am really happy with today's results. I know a bit more about my macro lens and how it works and that is always a good thing. I am confident that I can recreate the image if I want to and no doubt probably will to try and improve some more. After I got past the frustration of my flash not working well it became fun!

More macro

I haven't really had a lot of time to pick up the camera of late and the birds are getting totally neglected. They are still coming to visit the feeders but they haven't had a camera pointed at them in well over two weeks! I am becoming a little bit obsessed with achieving the reflection in the water droplet thing. Reading up lots and playing with the macro lens some more. I have a feeling that I need to get a whole lot closer to the droplet but I am working on making that happen.

In the mean time I have been playing some more and these are a few of the results. After doing some research I was pleased to see a reflection in the main droplet of water but when I changed the flower to something different I lost the reflection which was a little disappointing. I am sure there is an easier way and I will find it!

Tulips

A week or so back I took my mother to the Wellington Botanical Gardens where the tulips where just about at the end of their stunning displays. I only had my large lens on my camera to play with, and not being able to get down to ground level easily the resulting shots are pretty standard. However I did have some fun in the post processing. Enjoy!

Dragonflies and flowers

Damselflies are easy to photograph, so long as you can spot them they tend to settle in one place quite happily while you snap away at them. Dragonflies are a different kettle of fish completely. There is a trick to photographing dragonflies tho, they are territorial and fly in a circuit.

What I find easiest to do is put the camera on manual focus - auto focus will never work for these fast movers - then set your camera to where you know the dragonfly is going to hover albeit briefly, and when it shows try and get it in focus and shoot. If you miss it the first time don't move the camera or the focus, just wait for it to return and try again.

These dragonfly images were shot hand held as I didn't have a tripod with me, however if I had the opportunity I would definitely be using one. Dragonflies are hard work but they are addictive to shoot. You just know they are going to be back again and you might get a better shot! One other thing... dragonflies and damselfies are only out when the sun is shining, so there is no point in looking for them unless it is a bright sunny day.

A walk in the gardens - Manukau City

Roses - Wellington Botanical Gardens

Busy Bumble Bees

Doing the tourist thing...

I have family staying, so we have been out doing the tourist sites. Today was Zealandia and the Botanical Gardens.

White flowers

I have no idea what these flowers are but they are growing amongst my fushia garden and are very pretty at the moment. Each year there are more of them and each year the white display is more impressive.

The colours of Autumn

Late afternoon on the last day of daylight savings in Harcourt Park, Upper Hutt. The colours of Autumn are almost everywhere you look.