Azaleas, etc.

[RayintheUK]

I had a day off yesterday, visiting a local garden before the azaleas disappeared. Gave the new camera an outing and was quite pleased with the results, which are here

Ray.

[JimK]

Wow, nice pictures, beautiful place...

Jim K.

[cabinetman]

Ray - Some really nice pictures. You must have read the directions cover to cover. I might make one of them my desktop wallpaper, especially the one with the hippity hop in it.

[DUD]

We have nothing in this area that even comes close to being that beautiful. I envy You the Gardens over there. Bill

[cgallery]

Wow, that is a lot of flowers and beautiful shots. How strong is the fragrance from all those flowers when you're walking around there?

[jziegler]

Great pictures, Ray.

I don't think that I have ever seen Azaleas quite that big and nice. Nothing like that around here (that I know of, at least).

Jim

[mater]

Those are beautiful pictures Ray. The new camera had a good outing.

[ironhat]

What brand camera and lens are you useing, Ray. Beautiful shots and the resolution on the close ups is great. You threw me on that last shot, however. I had to scan back to your post to see if you are in the UK or Australia. We have some pretty big woodchucks here in Pennsylvania but nothing like that - LOL.
Thanks for sharing,
Chiz

[DonHo]

Very nice indeed. We have very nice azaleas in this area Muskogee, OK and Tyler TX have big azalea festivals but I've go to admit I've never seen a mouse anywhere near as big as that one even in Texas

DonHo

[RayintheUK]

How strong is the fragrance from all those flowers when you're walking around there?

The yellow blooms are the strongest of them all, although practically all of them have a fragrance. Along the lakeside, when the breeze is blowing, it's like walking into a perfumed wall where the yellow varieties are.

What brand camera and lens are you using, Ray. Beautiful shots and the resolution on the close ups is great.

It's a Pentax K10D with a Pentax 18 - 55mm F3.5 - F5.6 zoom, Chiz. I bought the body only, because I could use the lenses off my Pentax Z1 35mm film camera, but you've got to multiply focal length by 1.5, which cuts down on wider angle shots. The little zoom, designed for digital SLRs, came up on a photography forum I visit and it's fine for day-to-day stuff. The "saved for web" shots aren't bad, averaging around 65Kb, but the original jpegs (extracted from the RAW files) are around 1.5Mb. so the resolution on those is great. I get 280 jpgs per 1Mb SD Card, or 60 RAW shots.

I've been delighted with the setup and the results so far.

Ray.

[JR]

I've been delighted with the setup and the results so far.

As you should be! Beautiful photos, Ray.

We have one azalea bloom in our yard. It caused LOML and me to begin waxing eloquent on how beautiful it was, is it gettting the right light, etc. Now we see what a real azalea garden looks like!

JR

[ragswl4]

Beautiful. I love azaleas and have killed so many its a wonder I not in jail. I have tried to grow them here in SoCal but no luck. It must be great to see such beauty up close. Great Pics.

[Ken Massingale]

More beautiful shots Ray. Thanks. Looks like Rod left one of his pets.

[RodKirby]

Great pics, Ray. Been years since I took any outside shots.

That does look like an Oz wallaby

[Ed62]

Those shots make you want to pull up a chair in the garden. Nice and relaxing. LOML has azaleas, but not quite of that quality.

Ed