Fake, Fake, Fake

I wanted to quickly document the state of this year's dogwoods in early bloom, and was out and about with the teenaged Canon 5D. The sound of the mechanical shutter is somehow quite satisfying, and loud. The marvelous 135 mm f/2 L lens was attached. I was able to get a nice group of images. While processing them later, I decided to combine two into a single 'panorama', which these days only requires a click of a mouse or trackpad. Voila, a nice square image! I was actually pretty impressed with how well the Adobe software lined up the complex network of branches, and it was only the next day that I noticed the problem with the out of focus electrical cable passing through the upper half of the image. Oops, that's a bit of a tell. Still, and all, the snapshot meets my needs.

Tasting notes: Canon 5D, 135 mm f/2 L lens.

A blustery day

The published weather forecast this morning was for 'a blustery day' which made me smile a little. The past month has been quite rainy -- to the point of annoyance, really -- but, as a result, the azaleas and dogwoods are currently in full bloom. The dogwoods, in particular, are a good indicator of the amount of rain that has fallen. Luckily, I was able to compose, focus and capture this image during a lull between gusts of wind. Dogwood flowers can be interesting to photograph in color, but the dead-leaf-brown tones in the background of this image did not appeal. Hence, the monochrome treatment. I used the 21mm f/3.2 lens on the Pentax KP. It about as wide a perspective as I feel comfortable with, but it is a very fine little lens indeed.