More Flower Photos from the Gardens

Brian wanted to visit Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens last weekend so we went along for a walk round last Saturday. The Gardens were bathed in sunshine when we arrived but half way round the heavens opened so I wasn't able to get any more photos of the Snakeshead Fritillaries.

I had put the macro lens on the camera to experiment yet more and I think you probably need to use a tripod and have a day with no wind to get really sharp pics. The trouble is me and tripods don't mix as I usually manage to fall over the legs with possible dire consequences for the camera so I suspect sharp photos will remain a dream.

I only did a post last week on the Gardens so have tried to cut down on the amount of photos (slightly!).

Miniature Worlds

Apart from an initial attempt taking photos of daffodils and amber, I haven't got round again to trying out the new olympus macro lens I had for Christmas and Birthday. This morning I spent half an hour or so using it to take some pictures in the garden. I really wanted to find out if it was usable without a tripod! I experimented using different ISO's (400 and 800 as although the sun was trying to break through the light wasn't brilliant) and various wide apertures.

Using the lens (when I get the hang of it!) opens up a totally different world with clumps of moss and lichen looking like miniature forests.





Seedheads









Hazel Catkins

Female flowers (they always remind me of miniature sea anemones)



Male catkins doing an impersonation of lambs' tails



Primrose



Viola



I love the colours in this leaf



and a species of leaf miner on a bramble leaf



I really am going to have get my act together regarding focusing as the last photo shows although it does produce quite an interesting effect!



All in all I was quite pleased with the attempts although I think using a tripod would definitely improve results and I am going to have resort to more manual focusing I think or perhaps experiment with the different AF targets. One lesson I have learnt this morning is what a lot I still have to learn re: photography and my camera!

If anyone has any tips on taking photos with a macro lens I would love to hear them!

On a different note the lesser redpolls are still regularly using the garden pond for bathing and drinking.

And on a completely different subject I know that many other bloggers as well as myself are having problems with Blogger's new word verification. I did turn mine off for a while but found I was getting lots of weird looking spam so reluctantly I have turned it back on. I am just hoping that, with the problems it is causing, Blogger will reinstate the original version. So apologies in advance if you are trying to leave a comment and have problems!