Among the floral arrangements sent for my step-fathers funeral yesterday was a *gorgeous* orchid basket. I promise, I didn’t post-process the photo at all, this is exactly how the colors looked coming straight out of the camera!

105mm macro lens, 1/20 sec at f/3.2, ISO 1600

 

You should have heard the noise this girl (guy? who knows…) made when DB got too close to the younger ones!

And I’ve learned another advantage of having a longer telephoto lens- you can take photos from further away and preserve your safety. No one wants to mess with a large, pissed off bird.

70-200 lens at 165 mm, 1/200 sec at f/2.8, ISO 800

 

Driving around north-suburban Baltimore, we came across a trio of deer just hanging out, barely 100 feet off the road. They were pretty mellow deer, they just watched me as I pulled over and took several pics. Unfortunately I couldn’t get all 3 in one good shot, it seems that whenever 2 were looking towards me 1 wasn’t cooperating.  This was about the best I got.

18-105mm lens at 105 mm, 1/30 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

 

At least that’s what I imagine this bee was saying!
[This is definitely one of those photos you should click to open full-sized in a new window. I'm pretty impressed with the detail, if I may say so myself :-) ]

105mm macro lens, 1/800 sec at f/3.5, ISO 200

Jul 252011
 

This might be one of my favorite nature close-up photos ever!

I was in the yard with the kids and this guy caught my eye. Fortunately he was still sitting there when I returned with my camera and didn’t move when I moved in real close.  Gotta love having a high-quality macro lens!

105mm macro lens, 1/500 sec at f/3.0, ISO 200

I often encourage readers to click on a photo to view it at full size a new window. Here’s what this guys body looks like at full size. In reality his body was only about an inch or so long. Pretty good detail, huh?

 

This was actually a very difficult photo to take. Between the shallow depth of field and the web moving in the breeze, focusing was a challenge and I think I took about a dozen photos before I finally got something I liked.

105mm macro lens, 1/15 sec at f/7.1, ISO 800

 

Seems like something to be grateful for, right?

 

The astute observer will notice the lack of ice and snow in this photograph, in contrast to damn near every other outdoor photograph I’ve posted in the last month.  I got up Friday morning and headed south to visit a friend, I’ll be heading home later today.  We spent some time walking around the riverfront area and we noticed this blue heron (that’s what she said it is) , so we waited so that I could get some pictures of it in flight.

105 mm macro lens, ISO 200, F/8, 1/60 sec

Time: 11:00 am
Place: riverside

Damn, I wish I used a faster shutter speed and lower f-stop, I would have gotten a sharper image.
Still, I like the bird’s reflection in the water

 

Time: 12:00pm
Place: Waters edge

The second photo is a bit over-exposed, but I liked how I’m almost exactly perpendicular to the bird and how it looks in flight, so I’m using it anyway.  For other views from this same area check out Day 294 and Day 308.

 

What the hell sort of title is that, right?  Well, THIS is a Nikon 105mm f/2.8G Macro AF-S VR!

Click it to big it!

No, I didn’t buy a new lens, for starters this baby is WAY out of my price range.  What I did do was visit the fine folks at LensRentals.com and rented it for a few days.  Why pay big money for a lens you’re not sure you’d even like or use that much when you can rent and play with it for a while?  I’ve got this lens until Monday and plan on getting the most out of it!

Thursday morning DB and I went to a local park, where this picture and this picture were taken, and I took about 60 pictures.  Here are several of my favorites.

Click it to big it!

Click it to big it!

Click it to big it!

Click it to big it!

Click it to big it!

Click it to big it!

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