A LITTLE NATURE MACRO

I've made a few visits to the Mitchell Park Domes conservatory in the past several weeks, as well as a visit to the Boerner Botanical Garden, and thought I would post some of the shots that I got.

The first couple are of roses at the Boerner Botanical Garden that I took with my standard 24-120 mm lens.  The roses were large enough that macro was not really an issue.

I liked the next shot primarily for its technical and compositional features.

This was shot at f/8, but it was at such close range that the background was comfortably out of focus.

The Domes have been featuring a few lotus blossoms for some time and I got another shot of the one plant in bloom at the time of my visit.

This blossom was 6-8 inches across, and gorgeous.  This was taken with my telephoto lens, as was the following shot of a lotus seed pod that is what is left once the flower petals are gone.

I thought the narrow leaves to either side of the pod helped the composition a little.

Then there were a couple of shots that featured pattern and color more than actual blossoms.

And here is a flower that I liked for the abstract quality of the image.

The following was a large blossom in the tropical dome that I also used my telephoto lens to capture.

I also thought the following shot was technically good, even if the flower was indifferent.

In my most recent visit I spied the leaves of one of the plants that were being backlit and took the following shot.  I didn't mind that everything was out of focus except the leading edges of the two leaves.

I thought the following shot of a pond lily also worked fairly well.  The leaves helped to make the shot.

Finally, I noticed another plant with blossoms in various stages of opening.  Here, first are some buds that were still "wound up" . . . 

followed by a more mature bloom.

A little hard to tell what is going on, but, hey, the shots are good technically.

John