Trip to University Botanic Garden

I have a very interesting weekend. Had a trip to the Cambridge University botanic garden, and practiced shooting some flowers.

All comments, criticism and advice are welcome!

the first one is taken with an old M135/3.5, I am amazed at its good performance. Here are some more.

Sorry, This is my first time to post here. I don't know whether I should put all pictures in one thread or in separate comment. But here is some more pictures.




and this



I am completely helpless with the names of the flowers...Probably next time I should bring a notebook to write them down.

And some more. I hope this doesn't bore you... haha.




two of my favourite:

I took a few macro shots as well with the 18-55 II, The kit lens has very good optical performance, at least to me, haha







Please give me some feedback about ways to improve. Thanks!

I like the sixth photo Frank, but only as a cropped image leavin' three of the flowers in the scene.
The out of focus background is nice.

Somethin' like this.

[IMG]http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j159/paulyrichard/3805188551_2ed531fed8_olupins.jpg[/IMG]

I like #7 frank.....the bright dasies with the dark back ground seem to bring out the flowers more....

Nice shots, Frank. I agree with what you say about the often under-estimated kit lens. There's a Botanic Garden where I live (Oxford) and it is a great place in the same way. The colours in some of these shots are gorgeous, and I like the way you've captured the white water lily without blowing the highlights which I always find very easy to do with white or lightish objects.

Thanks, mecrox. I read it on dpreview that for pentax camera it is good to underexpose half a stop or one stop because its dynamic range extends better on the shadow range than highlight range so I shoot with EV -0.5 most of the time.. I think I was quite lucky with this shot.

Thanks Pauly. I think the picture needs some crop as well. The left side of the image seems a little empty. I wanted to place the tallest flower around the golden ratio point but that's not very easy

THank you for the encouragement!

Every time I see a post with pictures using "Old Glass" my heart makes a joy full jump. Every time I see those picture I see confirmation of the quality these little gems can produce (specially on digital). Your examples are no exception. Keep on posting them, Frank

Martin.