One day last week -- when the weather was still fine -- I took my K-5 out for lunch. Or, to be more precise, I went for a stroll through the botanic gardens during my lunch break hoping for an opportunity to exercise my new camera. As my enthusiasm about the latter is still overwhelming, please forgive my shooting mundane subjects like these ... This is also my first attempt at uploading pictures; I'd be grateful for advice how to do better.

The pictures are pure OOC jpegs, only scaled down with the Gimp. (The crop received a bit more attention, which probably made it worse.)

Let's start with a bunch of flowers. Don't ask what they are called -- I'm not a botanist, they just looked pretty.

K-5, DA 18-55 WR, F8, 1/250s, ISO 100


When I pixel-peeped into this picture at home I noticed that this blossom accomodates a few critters; do you recognize them in this 100% crop?


I'm really surprised by the IQ of the kit lens; I think it's very sharp, even in the near-macro range, and in case you're wondering -- the AF is spot-on.

K-5, DA 18-55 WR, F10, 1/250s, ISO 100


K-5, DA 18-55 WR, F11, 1/100s, ISO 1000


Of course I wanted to see how my older glass performs. The subjects are not overwhelming, but the IQ encourages me to leave the old lenses in my bag .

K-5, A* 135, F8, 1/125s, ISO 1000


K-5, FA 77 Ltd, F4.5, 1/320s, ISO 100


A single red tulip (hmm, I hope it is one?) caught my eye. It grew on a dry, almost colourless patch. The greens in the corner were actually there but I could well imagine to PP their colour away.

K-5, DA 18-55 WR, F6.3, 1/160s, ISO 100


Thank you for looking -- comments and criticisms are welcome.

[canajuneh]

Comment - I SO WISH there were flowers around my neck of the woods! We got snow today.

Criticism - not into being very critical - I thought your images definitely (and understandably) show your enthusiasm. A camera and spring flowers naturally talk to each other.

If I had to choose a favourite it would be the all green one with the rib effect. Is it a leaf?

Are those blue flowers Siberian squill?

[Pentaxosaurus]

If I had to choose a favourite it would be the all green one with the rib effect. Is it a leaf?

The underside of a fairly large leaf (of some plant in the greenhouse).

Are those blue flowers Siberian squill?

Yes, it's Scilla, and they grow in the Siberian corner of the gardens

[Cee Cee]

a fine lunch indeed!, that first flower is unusual, I'm no flowerologist either but its very pretty.

cheers