The car was packed and I was all set to head off to shoot a property in Takanini when I was told the property wasn’t ready. Being as it was a little cooler today we decided to take a stroll around Auckland’s Botanic Gardens. Not wanting to unpack the car I took my old Nikon D300 along with the first lens I bought for the Nikon, the Nikkor 18-200mm. The first thing I noticed was how light the camera felt in comparison to the ones I usually use. Rather pleasant to have less weight to carry.
After walking through the bush we arrived at the magnolia area of the gardens we almost missed these little cyclamen(?). No leaves and quite delicate colouration to the petals made these plants easy to overlook. I was quite intrigued with the “spiral stems” that you can just pick out at the base of the plant. I wasn’t aware that cyclamen were leafless, but perhaps some are. Anyway, if you know the name of the plant please let me know.
The next plant was just a mass of colour! Very pink indeed, but with a few yellow bits. I have absolutely no idea what this plant is, but it’s rather nice don’t you think?
So, the D300 still works. The dynamic range isn’t anywhere near that of my D800s and the 18-200mm lens lacks the clarity and bokeh offered by the lenses I usually use on the D800s. Looking at the first image, the bark in the background somewhat overwhelms the bloom … seems much too busy, and this was with the lens wide open and after adding some gaussian blur in Photoshop. All the same, it was a nice lightweight combination to take along for a stroll and the photos aren’t too bad … are they?