A friend had told me about this place a while back, I'd forgotten about it, then a member here pointed me to their website when I'd mentioned it. I read the Orchids were in bloom until mid February (tho I think there will be orchid blooms longer and at other times). So I went.
Here's the place:
Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park and Coe Hall Is Located 1395 Planting Fields Road Oyster Bay, NY 11771
And here's all the shots from this outing:
02/09/2008 @ the Planting Fields Arboretum album | m8o | Fotki.com
All are from the Voigtlander 125mm f/2.5 ... I definitely wished for a wider lens at times. I put the FA 50mm f/1.4 on a bit, but definitely went back to the voigt after only a few shots; wasn't even a question when time came to shoot the orchids. Used my trusty Manfro Monopod with the pistol grip & foot stand to allow easy one-hand operation..
It was a drizzly grey day, so inside the green house it was only about EV10 or 11, 12 at best, so most shots are quite high in the ISO. Manual focus of course, mainly in 'M' mode, and some TAv. I did shoot a lot stopped down about f/6.3, 7.1 and 8, which is really rare for me.
My post processing was done mindful of what my eyes saw, being sure not to over sharpen or over saturating; but due to the low light I did boost more then I normally would. In a number of shots I turned the 'vivid' setting in Lightroom to -15 to give the more realistic rendering.
Sorry, I didn't write down what I was shooting... lesson learned. Don't ask me what something is, I have no idea. <oops!> But ask if you want, maybe someone else will..
1:
(there's a couple of this flower by the 50mm in my 'accidental study' thread)
2:
(really tough to keep the petal detail visible in post of this white flower)
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6: ...an 'abstract' extracted from the above via the luscious bokeh of the lens... :^D
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Too much?