I went on a photo driving expedition today, which was pretty successful. The first keepers (for me at least) of the day were sunflowers with the 10-17mm fisheye...

10mm - f/3.5 - 1/500

17mm - f/4.5 - 1/500

Comments are welcome (even negative ones - I get over it eventually )

[Jimbo]

Heliphoto... Nice shots... The second is prefect... JIMBO

Whoa! nice effect there Josh. The first one has a kind of wind tunnel look about it. Nice bokeh.

[deejjjaaaa]

macros ? this is not even close up... what an abuse of the word... and bokeh is ugly.

[heliphoto]

Heliphoto... Nice shots... The second is prefect... JIMBO

Thanks JIMBO.

Whoa! nice effect there Josh. The first one has a kind of wind tunnel look about it. Nice bokeh.

I'LL GO WITH (HOLD ON <presses caps lock which was left on after thanking JIMBO>)... I'll go with "interesting bokeh, though I'm not sure if it's quite "nice"... Thanks! I do like the look of the bokeh in both shots...it's kinda jarring but I think this is just another layer of contrast between the in focus flower, and the jarring background... something like that.

macros ? this is not even close up... what an abuse of the word... and bokeh is ugly.

I see you read my whole post...

Comments are welcome (even negative ones - I get over it eventually )

... I'll admit that I do use the word macro even when it's more of a close up, and I'll try to quit (I'll apologize right now for future transgressions in this area). When I write the title "not your ordinary sunflower macros...", I think of it in the pseudo C syntax - !yourOrdinary("sunflower macros"), so you can see that the not (!) applies to the rest of the expression, ergo, not sunflower macros at all (probably not even sunflowers - I didn't do my research on this one).

As to not being close up, I beg to differ. The lens was almost touching the flower (did touch once - oops!)

I forgot to mention - the first shot was at 10mm, the second at 17mm. I'll edit the original post to reflect this.

[deejjjaaaa]

oh, sorry... I did not think that I should consider myself a human gcc... bokeh still ugly.

[heliphoto]

oh, sorry... I did not think that I should consider myself a human gcc... bokeh still ugly.

Nah, I don't really think of it that way... just making up justifications .

The bokeh is indeed still ugly.

[marlon]

I found the bokeh to be quite interesting in an abstract kind of way. Quite harsh but good to look at in this composition. However, I agree that this is not macro, and _almost_ close-up
Nice specimens, very different to the sunflowers (Sonneblomme) we have here n South Africa

[cupic]

A different view is a pleasant change


cheers

[heliphoto]

I found the bokeh to be quite interesting in an abstract kind of way. Quite harsh but good to look at in this composition. However, I agree that this is not macro, and _almost_ close-up
Nice specimens, very different to the sunflowers (Sonneblomme) we have here n South Africa

Thanks. I did a google image search for 'sunflower', and based on that incredibly sloppy research, I've concluded that either: (a) they are indeed sunflowers, or (b) many folks are under the same misapprehension in thinking that they are sunflowers, and it today's day and age, if you can convince the internet that a flower is a sunflower, then it is a sunflower.

A different view is a pleasant change


cheers

thanks cupic...

[foxglove]

Looks like a Jerusalem artichoke to me. Which means, of course, that it is indeed a type of sunflower, the Jerusalem part being a corruption of "girasole" (Italian for sunflower). Dig up some of the tubers in the fall, they're quite tasty!

I love macros (or close-ups if you insist) with wide lenses - it's always an unusual view. The flower looks a little oof or as though it moved in the first, but the second is spot-on. The bokeh is strange, but not unpleasant to my eye. Although on second thought, I suppose I wouldn't want to look at it too long...

Julie