Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/3200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
It was a nice day, so I stepped out for a short stroll with the camera. Many cherry trees have lots of stems and few blossoms, like in the photo below, but some still have large complements of blossoms. With the photo above, I put the sun behind the blossoms and tried to expose for the blossoms, but the result wasn't particularly good, but on a whim I cranked up the exposure in Lightroom, and the result has a nice dreamy glow, as if I had applied the Funky Joy touch-up as I did here.
Part of the effect could be that the wind was whipping the branches around and I was mostly shooting blindly.
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Here are a couple more of the “over-exposed glowy” variety...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
My destination for the stroll was a yaezakura cherry tree, which features late-blooming mixed-color ultra-puffy blossoms that Martha Stewart might have designed. Blooming in late April, it is the tree featured on my “10 Gallons of Blossoms on a 5-Gallon Branch” post, and in this 2008 Kyoto Cherry-Blossom Preview. Today, in mid April, it had just started to bloom...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
The blossoms aren't necessarily all that attractive up close when they're blooming, but even less so as they're just emerging...
The one white blossom in that clump seemed appropriate for Exploring the Edge of Creamy Macro Bokeh, but it didn't come out all that well, but here's one where I did a good job of getting most of the edge in focus, so perhaps it's worth a try as a vertical desktop background...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Elsewhere on the tree was a long bare branch hanging down, ending in a clump of blossoms....
A different kind of tree not far away had lots of little growths on the stems.... not sure what's going on, but it looks like it's supposed to be that way, I guess...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Lines at the bus stops got long as others out for the area's blossoms and museums headed home...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Finally, I stopped by to check on the Lily of the Nile that I posted about a week ago. I noticed that it had collected some cherry-blossom petals...
But it was speckled with black bits of something that made me want to clean my computer monitor while inspecting the shots in Lightroom. In fact, I did clean my monitor, but the photos remained the same. So perhaps I'll wait until after a rain to check in on them again. But from afar, they always look pretty....
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
The “little growths” on the other tree are its (male) flowers. They may not be as spectacular as the cherry blossoms, but they are flowers nonetheless. Instead of brightly colored petals or sepals for attracting pollinators, they have simple bracts which support a bunch of stamens (the stalked little green things sticking out of the cluster). The female flowers probably look quite different and are either on another branch of the tree, or on a different tree altogether. I don’t know the species though.
I believe that the tree with “little growths” is keaki – Zelkova serrata. It is a lovely, large deciduous tree related to elms, and a very important and high quality hardwood timber tree in Japan. Lovely photographs, as always.
I am _so_ envious of that Voigtlander lens: some of us have to make do with a Tamron, optically not at all bad, but exude quality of construction, it does not !