The First of Spring

Has to be done - catching loads of these beautiful little spring flowers sprouting up all over the place. Here's a few from last weekend, snapped at Heathfield Gardens near to Croydon.

All with the K7 and Tamron Adaptall 135mm f2.8, most shot at f4.0 or f5.6, ISO 200.


1.





2.





3.





4.





5.





6.





7.





8.





9.





10.





11.




Thanks for checking them out Nigel

Very nice, hoping to catch some spring blooms when we arrive in two weeks

Nice, but you want to be careful with that saturation slider

Nice ones! Like 2, 5 and 7.

Steve has obviously picked it up, but I too am finding these a bit too intense and harsh.

The very best lighting for flowers is bright overcast rather than lit by full sunlight.

Lovely subjects though. I could lose hours photographing flowers, it's very relaxing and absorbing.

9 & 10 for me. Some of the rest are a little oversaturated / too acid-looking. The background in 4 seems to lack contrast, but the colour of the flowers sears my retinas! Some weirdness going on around the flowers in 5... blocks of red colour in the background shadows?

Lovely set!

Liking the composition of number 7

Absolutely John, I had more like minutes in between keeping an eye on little McG's running around but there's endless potential for composition and framing choices, and the bright colours just draw you in. There's plenty more to come too, so I promise to contain my excitement with the saturation!

Thanks Will, I hope there's no permanent damage now I know the value of Photographers Liability Insurance I'm glad to have an impact. I'll certainly tone down the vibrance intensity a bit and post some into the gallery. No 5, looks like it slipped through the strict quality control measures - its a case of a 'masking mishap' I think

Thanks Tom, much appreciated, yes that was a great little bunch of them nicely tucked in between the trees, couldn't go wrong with that.

Thanks also to Steve, Donovan & Gajan for your input, always appreciated. I'm busy now working on preparing some more from what was a great couple of days shooting these flowers.