This past weekend was a nice weekend – sunshine, minimal breeze – and a soccer-free weekend! So I took the opportunity to go to the New York Botanical Garden’s 2015 Orchid Show, which I had missed out on going to last year.
Last month, I had also gotten myself a deal on a Nikon 60mm lens, from Borrowlenses.com. Yes, it’s used, and x-years old, but the money I was saving for a Nikon 105mm lens went to something else instead 😦 So the 60mm is what I have for now, and I thought the Orchid Show would be a good time to experiment and play with it.
And of course, this year’s theme at the NYBG 2015 Orchid Show is Chandeliers … Which means they’re hanging up there, in the air, or from the ceiling … which means that the 60mm probably would not even come close to zooming in on the orchids. But no matter … I knew there would be plenty of orchids and plants on the floor as well, and within my reach, so I resisted the urge to bring the telephoto lens with me, and concentrate instead on working with the 60mm.
There is a crop factor with the 60mm, and many times I had to step back to get the whole picture in the frame. Of course, since it was a nice day, everybody else decided they were going to the Orchid Show as well, and the Conservatory was packed with people, and I kept bumping into them, or them into me. And short person that I am, the tops of head would show up on the bottom of the photos. So I cropped out the heads – I didn’t want to see any heads in my photos.
The afternoon sun was also shining brightly. I thought the glass windows in the Conservatory would mute some of that sun-shiny brilliance, but it didn’t do much. Or maybe I had my settings wrong ….
I love the colours and graceful arc of this arrangement. A little bright, but I still like it.
And chandeliers weren’t just for orchids and flowers.
They had other plants up there too, but I have no idea what they’re called, those egg-plant looking plants, because I can’t read that sign up there! Why did they put the plant name sign up there? *sigh* Not that I remembered to look at the plant’s names all the time, but anyway …
Stay tuned for the stars of the show … the orchids …
A little bit of this and that ... 