This morning I realized I’d forgotten to put the battery for my daughter’s Nikon D80 to charge last night.  Since our other D80 is broken, however, we have a spare, so I went digging through the camera bag to find it.

You’d think it would have been an easy find, but it took a while. :-D

In the process, I was noticing some of our other lenses, including one of my old favourites, a Tamron macro lens.  It’s been a long time since I’ve used it.  My younger daughter’s orchids happen to both be blooming right now, so I figured I’d give it a shot! (pun fully intended)

I moved the plants to a well lit location in the kitchen, which meant no tripod space.  I promptly was reminded of just how vital a tripod is for me these days.  My hands shake so much!  Normally, it’s not an issue, but as soon as I start using them in certain ways that involve even minor strain to my hands, I just can’t keep them still.  It’s why I don’t draw anymore, because I can’t hold pencil to paper to do the detailed work I used to.

Of the various shots I took, here are two of them.  These images are resized to 30% only; I have done no adjusting for lighting or anything like that.  To they’re pretty much raw from the camera.

This tiny orchid was harder to shoot than the bigger one.  I’m happy with how this photo turned out, and one or two others, but none of the photos are anywhere near as crisp as the lens is capably of, simply because of the shake.

Love that depth of field, though!

The pink orchid has only two open flowers right now, with many buds, so I look forward to trying again as more of them open.

This larger orchid is in full bloom; I think there’s 10 flowers in it, alternated on the stem.

Again, I got several good photos, but the the focal points are still not as crisp as I know the equipment can do.

Which is not always a bad thing.  There was one photo where nothing was in focus – but the soft focus that resulted was so attractive, I ended up setting it as my background image.

I know I can make up for some of it with my Paint Shop Pro, but I wanted to post these without any adjustments, just as an example.

We used to do so much photography, back when we were all able bodied and youthful! :-D  We used to go hiking for hours in the ravine near where we lived and take hundreds of photos.  It was a rare day that went by that didn’t involve at least a few photos.  My husband was especially keen on photography, and quite good at it.

I think, now that we have moved out here, I will be able to take it up again.  I even have a monopod I can take with me, to help with the shake.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to get some more pain control for my husband and he’ll be able to get back into it more, too.

The Re-Farmer