I had big plans to kick off the new 100 days project with a trip to a Lavender farm but my stomach wasn’t feeling up to the trip (something I ate?) so I headed to the backyard with a variety of lenses instead. I tested them out on my ever faithful Hydrangea bush. And the winner is…. as always, the 180mm macro lens. It is good to do these tests now and then because then when I go into the field I don’t have to haul every lens I own…just go with tried and true. I still love the Lensbaby Velvet 85 too and I’m always surprised at what I can do with a 50 mm lens and an extension tube. I still need to play with the new 70-200 zoom with extension tubes and/or a closeup filter. I also didn’t get out the 100mm macro this morning as the wind was getting too strong. But the beauty of a project like this is there is plenty of opportunity to do these kinds of tests.
And that brings me to why am I putting myself through this again? Because my photography was getting stagnant and I was sitting around playing computer games when I should have been out shooting. Now I have a commitment to shoot every day and that means I will be polishing my skills and looking for new places to capture great images, as well as finding the great images, literally, in my own backyard.
A word on post processing. This one was cropped, spot healing brush liberally used to get rid of flaws on the flowers. A vignette to darken the edges and a high pass filter to sharpen up the edges.