histogram_man's photostream  

Taken in January 2012. Otherwise known as 'False Spiraea' and a native of the temperate regions of Asia. 'Sem' is a relatively new compact variety, here already coming into leaf in late January. The 14 day forecast is for the wind to turn easterly and bring much colder conditions or perhaps not and stay westerly so the poor plant must be crossing its fingers.

After the first experimental shots with the 7dayshop 7DVL1 LED light, this is from a third session where I finally got something I was fairly happy with. It looks like sunlight but is too even which can be an advantage and I think gives a pleasant effect. No grumbles at all at 15GBP. Running on metal hydride batteries too. Taken with the Pentax K-5 and Tamron 90mm macro lens.

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A commitment entered into in an unguarded moment.
Two months of looking at trees with something like 20kg on my back did not impress.

Taken in September 2011. A nameless (to me) plant in the local park gardens. Taken with the Pentax K-5 and Tamron 90mm macro lens.
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Taken in January 2012. A quick field test of my new photographic toy, not an example of fine macro work. Fairly late in a winter's afternoon after a dull drizzly day so I needed something quick to take from the garden path rather than on unpleasant muddy soil. This is a hebe, I believe, trying to look like heather and I have never photographed it as it seems too densely packed to get a good isolation of subject matter.
The LED light proved to be quite bright although from 50cm it is over 5 stops less than UK summer sunlight. A test with my custom white balance filter showed 6,100K +G1 so similar to cloudy daylight although the spec.says 5,500K. Integrating the light with the ambient light is always going to be an issue but for close up work and for 15 GBP I am not complaining. This was shot with auto white balance which left very blue water droplets whereas shooting on the cloudy setting gave neutral water droplets but over saturated yellows. I felt it was better correcting the water droplets (leaving them a little blue) than desaturating the yellow.

All in all a good buy and I hope to put it to further use in due course.

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Taken in July 2011. There is an effect of some of the detail being painted on but it is also in the original, I think because those parts are very shiny. Taken with the Pentax K-5 and Tamron 90mm macro lens.
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