Taste the Difference

Very dull and grey today, so not much incentive to get out and about with my new toy.  Since I had some shopping to do at lunchtime, I took it with me to Sainsbury's.  I'm not sure what their attitude would have been if they discovered I was photographing Coke bottles, Easter eggs and asparagus...

I took a few outside as well, as I'm still very much learning what works (and what doesn't) with this new lens.

Interestingly, exactly the same combination as Ann's (5DmkII and 15mm fisheye) shows an indentical fault: namely the dreaded "Err01", which is a communication failure between the lens and the camera body.  I'm beginning to wonder whether there's a software problem.  This kind of thing would never have happened in FD days...

New Toy

Ok, so I lied about the "saving up" bit.  I went to Focus on Imaging yesterday and bought myself a B-grade 15mm fisheye lens with about a 25% saving.  More than that, I still have all my appendages after taking it home and owning up!  There hasn't been much chance to try it yet, but I went out into the car park at work for about 20 minutes at lunchtime - this is the result.

It's certainly a strange place to work...

Patterns

It's been quite frosty the last few mornings while walking the dog, resulting in some attractive ice patterns.

In addition, the tree surgeons have been active, clearing out the dead wood after the Winter.  One of the tree stumps has developed a beautiful black tracery, although I've no idea what causes it.  Some kind of fungus, perhaps?  The final shot shows the whole stump for reference.

Having fun at Kew

A small bunch of intrepid photographers braved the weather on Sunday to visit Kew Gardens.  It was grey and wet, but this didn't really matter as the prime reason for the trip was to see the orchids in the Princess of Wales conservatory.  Being inspired by Paula's lupins, rather than take some "straight" shots of the flowers, I thought I'd have a go at something a bit more creative.  The plan was to take foregrounds and backgrounds separately, but I rather like some of the backgrounds as abstracts in their own right.

Similarly, I preferred the dreamy close-ups of the white orchids compared to a more factual record.

Suitably fortified by tea and cake, I wandered around outside the glass houses as it had just about stopped raining.  By now I was having fun with this panning and zooming malarkey, so decided to continue in the same vein.  First target was a bed of crocuses under a tree...

...and then a couple of the glass houses themselves.

By this point I was enjoying myself far too much to do any "real" photography, so Ann very kindly lent me her 15mm fisheye lens.  As with many of the items I've borrowed from her, it was ever so difficult to give it back.  Huge fun, and I can see myself saving up for one at some point.