This one. That one.

Some of my readers are trapped in an office for work. I'm not trying to make them jealous when I say this, but I'm loving sitting on the back patio, writing. The patio umbrella gives me some shade, and the table has a drink on it. OJ, no booze, if you were wondering. The laptop is playing music as I write. Pink Floyd, if you were wondering. One of my neighbours a few doors down has a lawnmower running.

It's warm and sunny, though though there's supposed to be some rain later today. Thats ok, the lawn and garden need it. In the meantime the slowly gathering clouds are interesting. It just occurred to me that I should have set up one of the cameras for some time lapse photos. Another time, perhaps. I took a bit of a break to if our garden has any new interesting scenes to photograph. Some of the clematis are coming along. Stay tuned.

This first photo is a wild crocus from Reesor Ranch. I'm lying down on my tummy to get this shot, being careful about the horse poop. The 100 mm macro lens is only a few inches from the flower. I love the detail and the lovely blurred background.

This next one is at Reesor Lake, when I was bored with the pelicans. This is the very opposite of a macro lens. I had the 150-600 cranked all the way out to 600 mm. That bunch of leaves was probably 15 feet from the lens, and I had the camera and lens resting on a picnic table. Even with my big manly thews, it's tough to hold such a big heavy lens steady.

Yes, I could have broken out the 100 mm, and walked closer. But one of the things I wanted to see is how blurred the background would be, and what that did for composition. I'm a bit surprised and pleased how sharp the leaves are. People often say this lens is a bit soft at 600 mm.

Pointing in a slightly different direction gave me this shot. Again, I'm almost more interested in the reflections and water ripples than the bird itself.

Driftwood of the Day