Nature Flowers with the X-E1 and XF 55-200mm

entropic remnants

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John Griggs
I took the X-E1 and the 55-200mm out for a run at Longwood Gardens and got these. I needed some more time with the lens before I use it at a wedding and I did some other shots there to test things but most of them aren't attractive, lol.

Really think this lens is a winner -- and has the reach and close focus I need for this. Very few of these have any cropping for anything but presentation -- the lens gets in close enough for nice flower shots.

I think the bokeh on this lens and camera are great also. This combo feels image-wise a lot like my D7000 and 70-200mm VR II did -- only it is way WAY lighter, lol.

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Spiky Red by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

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Pink! by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

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Water World by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

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Fire in the Sky by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

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Black-and-White Beauties by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

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Bathing Beauty by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr
 
nice set John. #3 is very foreign and strange and #4 shows beautiful details.

Thanks, Luke!

Yes, those water lilies and lotus flowers are strange things with all their spikes and what not. They are that way under water as well to discourage fishy foragers. Kind of like "thorny roses of the water" although the flowers are nothing like roses and they can be HUGE. Certainly those pads floating in the water are sometimes many feet across -- I think I've seen them over 5 feet in diameter.
 
Are those hand-held?

Of course they were hand-held! It was daylight.

It's funny, but I was talking to somebody at the Gardens and mentioned about people using tripods with stabilized lenses on sunny days -- I saw people with $500 tripods standing in the sun taking photos at wide open at fast shutter times. The employee of the Gardens said, "None of the pros here use a tripod in the daylight". Amen.

I use one for long exposures for HDR in dark buildings for sure. Hard to hand-hold a 20 second exposure, lol.
 
Ah. I can't click through to Flickr to peep at your exif data, but when I shoot such things it seems like the plant moves, the water moves, I move, etc, and don't always get as crisp a photo as I wish I did -- and I can only imagine a tele lens making it worse. But THOSE are crisp.
 
Ah. I can't click through to Flickr to peep at your exif data, but when I shoot such things it seems like the plant moves, the water moves, I move, etc, and don't always get as crisp a photo as I wish I did -- and I can only imagine a tele lens making it worse. But THOSE are crisp.

Well, tripods don't help much with plant movement unfortunately, and naturally I don't post the ones that might have blurred, lol. If a plant is swaying in a systematic manner, I try to snap it at one end or the other of it's sway when it's moving at it's slowest.

But part of what you're seeing is that I had a nice day with little wind. The shots in the water garden are in a sheltered courtyard so things are pretty still there.

Mostly I was shooting between wide open (f/4.8 for this at 200mm) to f/9. Most of the shots are around f/8 to f/9 and the only difference is that I bumped the adjustment. I meant to shoot at f/8 mostly to get enough depth of field on the subject. This lens largely makes nice bokeh at virtually all apertures and focal lengths-- obviously less of it though when stopped down.

Shutter speeds were mostly 1/100th and higher, sometimes much higher. Fast enough to freeze slow motions. In some cases the ISO was pushed up to maintain the minimum shutter speed I needed but the cameras don't really show much noise at any practical daylight ISO.

Hope that helps a bit Kyle and thanks again for your comments.
 
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