Sun, flowers, and a camera = bliss.

Relaxation was in order, so someone pushed a camera into my hands and sent me off to photograph gardens in Overschie. It’s a very good way to get to know the new camera (and I do admit I’m still getting to know it), and I experimented with (exposure) bracketing. Until now, I’d take a picture that I knew was more or less near what I wanted exposure-wise, and then manually adjust going from that picture for the right one. With bracketing (which is automatic on the 50D) I try to take the perfect picture in one go and end up with some room to move in with the other two pictures, one over-exposed, one under-exposed. Because the sun was unreliable today this wasn’t an entirely bad thing.


(Try picking a favourite in situations like this, though: there're usually two you want to keep.)

I love, I have to admit, underexposures, especially with colourful flowers. Underexposure brings an almost unearthly deep colour to pictures like that, partly because the background becomes so dark it's non-existent.



You can also get some really contrastive results, almost like paintings. (Proof you don't have to buy your wall-decorations anywhere: just make your own and have them printed on canvas.)



And sometimes, besides just pretty pictures, you get lucky and take an actually good one. I'm really proud of the bee picture, and even prouder of the one with my grandmother. Virtually impossible to catch her not paying attention, but when you do it works.



These were all taken with my macro lens, none of them went into a graphics programs except for a 50% size reduction, and the complete result can be here.
And I got to finish this at McDonald's, pouring my heart out. All in all, a wonderful day. ;)

And now, apparently, I am walking my dog. And I probably have to make it easier to order prints from the website.