Morning Surprise
Jul 30, 2015 11:00:49 #
After letting the dogs out in the morning my wife came back in the house saying that she thinks a cactus flower is open. I checked and sure enough we had one white bloom here in not so sunny California. We've actually been having July rain! The flower was well over my head and strongly back lit by cloudy skies with the sun virtually behind the plant! If I play it right in a day or two I might be able to shoot a tripod close-up of another flower. We will have to see. This one was hand-held.
Morning Surprise Cactus, So. California - Pentax K20D Pentax-A 50mm f/1.4 Lens, f/4.5 @ 1/350 sec., ISO 400.
(Download)
Jul 30, 2015 11:02:55 #
Jul 30, 2015 11:04:31 #
Jul 30, 2015 11:13:34 #
Jul 30, 2015 11:15:50 #
Thanks. The sky is blown out but that was unavoidable with the lighting and not going HDR (yuck). Had I used my K5 I might have gotten another stop out of the ISO and split the other two to f/5.6 and 1/450 sec. for a slightly better exposure. Also I should have set the meter to spot so I would not have had to take five shots to get to this one. But it is not like the plant is going to walk away -- I can do it another time.
Jul 30, 2015 11:50:31 #
Very nice, Mike. Great detail and surprisingly realistic subtle color rendition. I know the K5 is highly rated, but this K20 is obviously no slouch, either. Good Pentax glass.
Jul 30, 2015 15:00:07 #
rjaywallace wrote:
Very nice, Mike. Great detail and surprisingly realistic subtle color rendition. I know the K5 is highly rated, but this K20 is obviously no slouch, either. Good Pentax glass.
Thanks. Yes, I was pretty happy considering the little time I spent setting up and shooting. Oddly the color seems fine yet I forgot to set the WB in either the camera or ACR. No blue cast. I prefer the vintage Pentax lenses. The A-series works best for the least price. F-series would be nicer and AF. Though many of my lenses are M- & K- series (all manual M & Av only exposure). I even have a few old screw mount M-42 Takumars. I also own three modern Pentax DA & DA* lenses. Of their flagship models as I remember it went something like Pentax K-100, K-110, K-10, K-20, K-7, K-5. K-5II, K-5IIs, K-3, K-3II. I have a K-100 converted for full-time IR use.
Some things I can't be sure of for this shoot because I altered a few items in my camera set ups after some UHH, camera manual, and other reading over the weekend.
- Mike
Aug 2, 2015 01:42:28 #
No second bloom opened yet, still waiting as of 8/1/15. Going to try a different lens and camera next time.
Aug 7, 2015 01:19:06 #
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