Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/180 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Cherry Blossoms and the Snowy Bridge

Being March already, I thought I'd look forward to Kyoto's cherry-blossom season, which should be ramping up in to full swing in a month or so. The orange blur in the background of the picture above is the Snowy Bridge from a post week ago. Photos in that post were looking down the canal toward where today's photo was taken.

The photos in today's post, of course, were not taken today; they were taken in late April last year after most cherry blossoms in this area were long gone. The blossoms here are of a late-blooming variety that appeared on the post 10 Gallons of Blossoms on a 5-Gallon Branch, and also on a hot July's Cooling Off with Pastel Cherry-Blossom Desktop Backgrounds.

Picking up on yesterday's Selective Focus post, I thought I'd show a few of the many different compositions that I tried while applying my “carpet bombing” approach to photography. The next two shots focus on the same cluster of blossoms, but the first one has more of the background in focus, due to a smaller aperture and a little less zoom.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 170 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
More Background

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/320 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Less Background

I prefer the less-background effect, and the framing of that shot as well.

In the next pair, the exposure settings remain the same, but the point of focus shifts from the foreground to the background.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 78 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/7.1, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Foreground Focus

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 78 mm — ¹/180 sec, f/7.1, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Background Focus

I suspect that the first one leaves too much to the imagination when you don't know what the background scene is, but once you do, I prefer it to the second one. The boat, by the way, is one of several cherry-blossom sightseeing boats that ply the canal during the spring when the canal is lined with cherry blossoms (as seen here, and in one of my first posts several years ago, here).

The photographic issues discussed on this post are of the most basic nature, straight from basic intuition and Photography 101, but I wrote about them because they gave me an excuse to post more cherry blossoms 🙂

I still have my best “snow at the Heian Shrine” photos to post, and the current forecast if for more snow early next week, and with all the snow that's been in my blog lately, I thought today would make for a nice change.